


The Properties of Bentonite

by laquearia



Category: Yuri!!! on Ice (Anime)
Genre: Alternate Universe, Art Teacher AU, Failing Yurio, Fluff, M/M, very little angst
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-03-05
Updated: 2018-05-24
Packaged: 2019-03-27 11:10:47
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 4
Words: 24,617
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13879632
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/laquearia/pseuds/laquearia
Summary: Yuri Plisetsky begins failing art class on a Tuesday.(In which Yuuri is a high school art teacher who is trying to keep his student from failing ceramics class before graduation, and parent-teacher conferences end up being his last-ditch effort.)





	1. Cone 08

Yuri Plisetsky begins failing art class on a Tuesday.

At first, Yuuri can’t believe his eyes. The scrawled 53% sits in the furthest right-hand column on the page and stares up at him in crisp, blue-black ink. With a surprised huff, he rubs his eyes with the heels of his hands and checks the number again just in case sleep deprivation is finally giving him the hallucinations that technically should’ve started three hours ago.

He blinks. The scrawled 53% does not magically turn into a 93% as soon as he reopens his eyes, so that must mean—

This is _real_.

“Oh my god.” Yuuri drops his face into his hands and groans.

How is this even remotely possible? In the five years Yuuri’s taught at Hasetsu High School, he’s never had a single student flunk out of one of his art classes. Honestly, as long as his students show up, turn in their projects on time, and remain _conscious_ from the time the bell rings to the end of class, they should be able to pass with flying colors.

But if that’s the case, then why is Yuri Plisetsky failing _fucking_ ceramics?

Yuuri blearily peeks through the fringe of hair that hangs in front of his eyes. The clock reads 4:39 AM in the lower right-hand corner of his laptop. His brain is running on fumes of two bottles of hot sake and chocolate-covered espresso beans—a winning combination if ever there was one—but through sheer force of will, he is able to squeeze out the final vestiges of his brain power to do some basic math:

It is 4:39. School starts at 7:45. If Yuuri goes to sleep right now and drinks no fewer than four cups of blacker-than-tar coffee as soon as he wakes up, he should be able to make it through fifth period without collapsing in on himself like a dying star.

It’s a generous estimate.

With a sigh, Yuuri closes his gradebook and tosses it across the room where it lands splayed open on a pile of student work in the corner by the door. He is not fortunate enough to make it to the bed before he passes out, curling up unceremoniously on the carpet instead.

There’s a week until midterm grades are due. A week isn’t a lot of time to boost a grade by seven points, but damned if he isn’t going to try.

 

 

* * *

 

 

The coffee, as it turns out, does not rid Yuuri of the residual bone-deep exhaustion he feels upon waking two hours later. It just makes him pee a lot in between second and third period, and the entire situation is remarkably inconvenient in every possible way.

That 53% in Yuuri’s gradebook lingers at the back of his mind like a specter, shadowing his every thought and feeling. He can’t focus on teaching, can hardly _function_ with the knowledge that Yuri Plisetsky is failing ceramics class. It’s an odd, twisting sensation that settles in his gut, cold and horrible and so very, very persistent. The lack of sleep doesn’t help matters, either.

Yuuri’s fingers are jittery and unsteady during a demonstration on portraiture in his first period drawing class. During second period, he stutters over his words during a lecture on Pre-Columbian art history and somehow ends up talking about his personal feelings on the animation style of _The Emperor’s New Groove_ versus _Atlantis_. During third hour, he forgets how to use the lasso tool—the fucking _lasso tool_ — in Photoshop and spends ten solid minutes fighting with it, cursing pixels and every CMYK color on the spectrum until he figures out what he’s doing wrong.

The entire morning is a disaster, plain and simple.

53% pulses a tattoo behind his eyelids, mocking Yuuri relentlessly as he stumbles down to the teachers’ lounge during his planning period for yet another cup of half-burnt, wholly-terrible coffee. He’ll accept the frequent bathroom breaks as his punishment just as long as it _wakes him up before ceramics class, dear_ god _._

The teachers’ lounge is small and utilitarian with barely enough space for a coffee-stained kitchenette in the corner, a trashcan, a small circular table, and two plastic chairs that look like they’ve been through war—which, in this school, is actually a possibility. Phichit Chulanont, the tenth grade geometry teacher, is taking up one of the aforementioned plastic chairs when Yuuri enters. He smiles and offers a congenial wave as Yuuri passes him on the way to the coffee maker on the far side of the lounge. Of all the teachers who could be in the lounge right now, Yuuri is glad that that it’s Phichit; the bond between an art teacher and a geometry teacher is an unlikely one, but theirs is forged in steel and a shared love of competitive figure skating.

“Oh, hi Yuu—“ He greets, but stops short upon noticing the purple shadow beneath Yuuri’s eyes. His eyebrows shoot up into his hairline. “Whoa. You look _terrible_. Please don’t tell me the kids gave you the flu. It’s going around again.”

He knows; he has to prepare fifteen make-up folders for students after school today. Yuuri shakes his head and presses the button on the coffee maker with a little more force than necessary. “Just tired.”

“You look _dead_.” Phichit sets his novel aside—the 2009 novelization of _The King and the Skater IV: Skate Harder_ , dog-eared and worn down to its threadbare binding. Phichit laces his fingers together. “Midterm grading?”

“Yeah.”

“Ouch,” he sympathizes.

Yuuri glances over his shoulder with a raised eyebrow. “Did you turn in your grades yet?”

“Nope, and I don’t plan on having them done until the day they’re due,” he says breezily, grinning. “But seriously, Yuuri, you look like a zombie—I’m surprised you haven’t made any of the freshmen cry.”

“There’s still time left in the day.” With a scowl, Yuuri whacks the side of the ancient coffee maker; a thin stream of hot, black liquid begins to drip into the scorched pot. He lets out a relieved breath as the scent of cheap coffee floods his senses, and turns around, leaning against the edge of the kitchenette’s Formica countertop. He rakes a hand through his hair.

Confiding in fellow teachers is not something Yuuri is known for, but he ends up saying, “Hey, I’ve actually got a bit of an issue. Maybe you can help me out?”

Phichit perks up. “Ooh, sounds juicy. What’s going on?”

“One of my students,” he starts, fiddling with the hem of his shirt, “is failing ceramics.”

He waits. Yuuri expects a gasp of shock, or maybe a horrified look. What he gets, however, is a blank expression.

Phichit blinks, suddenly realizing that Yuuri isn’t going to add anything else to his sentence. “What, that’s it?” Yuuri nods gravely in reply, and Phichit snorts, leaning on the back two legs of the plastic chair. “Well, one’s better than most. Seung-Gil flunks half his physics class every semester like clockwork. Hell, five of _my_ students are failing right now. It’s not a big deal.”

Yuuri groans and drops his face into his hands miserably. “But I’m not Seung-Gil! Phichit, I’ve never had a student fail one of my classes before.”

Phichit sets all four chair legs back on the ground with a _thunk_. “Never?”

He shakes his head. “A few came close, but none of them ever actually managed to go all the way _.”_

Phichit’s eyes are wide and slightly concerned. He leans forward in his seat, bracing his elbows against the tabletop. “You’ve… never failed a student before. That is what you’re telling me right here, right now—that every student in your class has finished the semester with a C average or above.”

Yuuri shifts, swallows. “Uh… yes?”

For several seconds, Phichit says nothing. He just blinks owlishly up at Yuuri. Then: “Wow. What is that even _like_?”

Yuuri lets out an exasperated sigh and turns back to the coffee maker, which is almost halfway full. A quick glance at the clock tells Yuuri he has five minutes until fifth period starts.

“It may not seem like a big deal to you, but it is to me,” Yuuri says. “He’s been a good student up until this semester. I don’t know what happened.”

“Who is it?”

Yuuri hesitates. The door to the lounge is ajar; he steps across the room and closes it as quietly as possible before turning around. “Plisetsky’s pulling a 53% in ceramics right now.”

For the first time since initiating this conversation, concern etches itself deeply into Phichit’s olive-toned features. “Yuri Plisetsky, really?” At Yuuri’s nod, he laces his fingers together behind his neck and frowns. “Huh. Yeah, all right, that’s weird.”

“Right?” Yuuri exclaims in a whisper. He eyes the small window at the top of the door, making sure no students are in the hallway outside before pulling out the chair closest to Phichit and sitting down. He leans forward conspiratorially. “I had him in graphic design last year. He was one of my best students in the lab, honestly—always earned his marks, did extra work, the whole nine yards. This semester, though… I don’t know. It’s like he’s a completely different person. He’s only turned in, like, two assignments since we got back from winter break.”

Phichit taps his chin thoughtfully. “Have you talked to the counselor about it? Maybe there’s something going on at home that we don’t know about.”

“I was going to talk to Georgi this afternoon, but I figured Yuri should be my first stop before I do anything else.”

“Good plan,” Phichit murmurs. His eyes are strained, brow creased in consternation. “I had Plisetsky last year in geometry. Bright kid. An attitude problem, but he always turned in his homework.” Phichit meets Yuuri’s gaze and grimaces. “Want my advice?”

Yuuri nods. “Always.”

“Do what you just said. Talk to the kid and talk to Georgi, see if there’s something you can do on your own. Maybe some after school tutoring or a behavior plan would do the trick. You know, keep things in-house,” he says solemnly. A shrug. “And if that doesn’t work, there’s always plan P.”

Yuuri blinks. “Plan P?”

Phichit stands up from the chair and gives Yuuri a meaningful look and a firm clap on the shoulder. “Parent-teacher conferences.”

 

 

* * *

 

 

The final bell rings at 2:27 on the dot. As Yuuri’s ceramics students begin cleaning up their tables, hanging their clay-caked aprons on their respective hooks, and washing their tools, Yuuri tries his hardest not to fidget.

Yuri Plisetsky is stabbing a mound of semi-dried clay with a needle tool at the far end of the room, eyebrows furrowed and apron hanging loosely around his neck. His hands are caked with greyish slip and Yuuri spies a few chunks of dried clay stuck in his overly-long hair. The rest of the students appear to be ignoring him in favor of cleaning up and leaving for the day.

Yuuri breathes in, breathes out. _Okay, I can do this._

Soon, there are only a handful of students left in the room, chatting and washing their hands at the sink in the back near the glaze shelves. Yuuri sees his chance. He takes it.

Approaching Plisetsky’s seat, Yuuri bites the inside of his cheek until he tastes copper. Nerves churn in his stomach, acrid and bitter—actually, it might just be the coffee from earlier. It’s _probably_ the coffee.

“Yuri,” he says quietly. The leftover students in the back of the room don’t look over, don’t even notice them. He clears his throat and repeats himself, this time a little louder.

Yuri, however, looks up through his curtain of hair. “Hey, Katsuki-sensei. I’m gonna clean up in a minute, I promise.”

Yuuri swallows down his coffee-flavored nerves and clasps his hands behind his back to keep from fidgeting. “That, uh… isn’t why I came over here,” he says. Clears his throat. Motioning to the stool on the opposite side of the table, he asks, “Can I sit?”

The boy’s shoulders stiffen, and he looks suddenly wary. “Am I in trouble?”

 _Yes, sort of, maybe?_ “No. I just wanted to talk to you.”

But Yuri isn’t buying it. His sea-glass eyes are sharp enough to cut, and his hackles rise as Yuuri pulls the stool out to sit. “If I’m in trouble, just spit it out already,” he says flatly. “I’ve got places to be.”

Yuuri is a teacher. He is no stranger to authority, nor is he unfamiliar with how to manage student behavior. In a normal situation, he would never allow Yuri to speak to him so disrespectfully. But, as evidenced by the dancing coffee-acid nerves in his stomach and the way his eyes keep drifting shut whenever a cloud passes over the sun outside his window for more than two milliseconds, this is not a normal situation. Far from it, in fact. So he lets it slide.

Yuuri rests his elbows against the dirty tabletop and laces his fingers together as he thinks about how to order his words. His sleep-deprived mind keeps offering suggestions in Japanese, and he is doing his best to ignore them in favor of the English ones. _Focus, dammit. Stay awake._

“I’m… concerned,” is what he finally says.

Yuri stares at him. Briefly, he glances self-consciously over his shoulder at the remaining students in the room. They are toweling off their metal tools and gathering up their books to leave for the day while chatting pleasantly about that evening’s basketball game and the proposed theme for the student section. As they pass, two of the girls wave at Yuuri and wish him a nice evening; one of the boys gives a meaningful head nod to Yuri, which he returns.

Once they’re gone, Yuri turns back to his teacher with a raised eyebrow. “All right, whatever. I’ll bite. What are you concerned about?”

Yuuri swallows thickly and fiddles with a small button on his sleeve. “Well, as you probably know, midterm is at the end of the week. I was working on grades last night, and—“

“And I’m failing your class,” he finishes flatly. “Yeah, I know.”

It’s—

It’s not what he expect him to say at all.

Yuuri blinks. “You _know?_ ”

Yuri’s expression is the picture of nonchalance as he begins cleaning up his area, folding his piece of canvas, reconditioning his dried-out clay with clumsy fingers. He shrugs. “Of course I do. I’ve gotten, like, a million emails about it already.”

“Oh,” Yuuri murmurs. He watches Yuri pick up his tools with wide, unfocused eyes. “Well, I guess that makes things simpler for me.“ Clears his throat. “I, uh, wanted to discuss some of your options while I have you here. I have a few things lined up that will help you boost your grade before the end of midterm, but we’ll have to hurry if we want to—“

“No.”

Silence floods the art room. The boy is staring at him through his thick fringe of golden hair, eyes narrowed and lips thin. Yuuri doesn’t move—he _can’t_ move. A sudden numbness has overtaken his hands and feet.

“No?” he breathes, not entirely convinced this isn’t a hallucination borne of sleep deprivation and an unsafe amount of shitty coffee. Shakes his head. “You— I’m sorry, what?”

Yuri nods once, sharply. “You heard me. I don’t want your help.”

He gawks at the boy, not entirely sure he’s speaking English or any other recognizable language because what he’s saying makes _no sense whatsoever._ Yuuri sputters, “But you’re _failing_. Of course you need help!”

Yuri dumps his tools into the sink and whirls around, teeth bared. “Look, I’m only gonna say this one more time: I don’t _want_ your help, Katsuki-sensei. Don’t want it, don’t need it, will never ask for it. I don’t care about my grades, and I sure as hell don’t care about making pots and shit out of mud for _credit_. So just leave me alone, okay?”

And with that, Yuri discards his apron on the floor and stomps out of the classroom with his hands in his pockets, a scowl on his face, and a chip on his shoulder the size of Siberia. All Yuuri can do is stare at the surface of the table in shock, mouth agape as Yuri slams the door behind him as if to punctuate his sentence. Yuuri can’t help it; he jumps.

Silence falls heavy and resolute like a woolen blanket over Yuuri’s empty art classroom.

“What just happened?” he exhales, raking his fingers through his hair and tugging. With a groan, he discards his glasses and buries his face in his hands, suddenly feeling stupendously drained of energy.

Yuri Plisetsky, by all accounts, is a _good student._ He’s not on the A honor roll, but he’s above average and always works hard on his projects, even if he’s not particularly gifted in the visual arts. There has to be something else going on. That’s just all there is to it.

Striding over to the phone mounted on the wall of his classroom, Yuuri picks up the receiver and dials Georgi’s extension. It rings twice before he answers.

A muffle sniff. “Georgi P-popovich speaking.”

Yuuri doesn’t waste time. “Hey, it’s me. Have you talked to Yuri Plisetsky lately? I’m worried there’s something wrong at home. His grades have taken a major dive lately, so I’m hoping you know something that I don’t.”

Another sniffle, this one a little louder. “I don’t—I’m not sure.”

Yuuri blinks. Frowns. “You’re not sure if you’ve talked to him?” he repeats flatly. Running a hand over his face, he asks, “How can you not be sure?”

“Look, Yuuri—“ a muted sniff, and the sound of Georgi blowing his nose “—I’m not really in the best place to talk business right now. Anya just left me this morning— _again_. She took the cat and everything, and I’m… Oh, Yuuri, I’m so miserable!”

Yuuri closes his eyes and leans his forehead against the nearest bulletin board. He can’t even begin to describe how much he _does not_ _care_ about Georgi’s catastrophic failure of a love life. He and Anya break up at least once a month, and every time Georgi devolves into a sniveling mess of unproductiveness that makes everyone’s job a little bit harder until he gets over himself precisely eight days later.

You’d think the guidance counselor would be better at managing his own relationships. Jesus.

But Yuuri tries to sound sympathetic nonetheless. “Oh, uh. Really? That’s… too bad.”

Georgi lets out a breathy sob. “I think this is really the end this time. I don’t think she’s coming back.” More sniffling, and the foghorn sound of a blown nose. “I can’t sleep, I can’t eat. I don’t know what to _do_. It’s like all the color has left the world and I’m _drowning._ ”

 _Seek professional help, for the love of god._ Swallowing, he tries for false cheer instead, hoping he can squeeze a little bit of information out of him before he completely loses it. “Hey, don’t say that! I’m sure she’ll come back, Georgi. You just have to—“ he searches for the right word, thinking back to the marathon of Hallmark movies he’d watched over the weekend “— _believe_. Yeah, that’s it. Just believe that it’ll all work out and, uh… I’m sure she’ll, you know, come back. With the cat.”

Yuuri can’t see him, but he’s pretty sure Georgi is nodding. “Yeah, yeah, you’re right. I _know_ you’re right.” A sigh, and his voice sound much clearer than before. “Sometimes I think you should be the counselor, Yuuri, not me. You’re amazing at this stuff.”

“I… try?” It comes out sounding like a question, but Georgi obviously doesn’t notice it.

He sniffs one last time, saying, “Well, thank you so much for helping me. I feel a little better now. I’m going to go home and clean the house for when she comes back, okay? Have a good night, Yuuri.”

The dial tone hits him like a sack of bricks.

With a heavy sigh, he hangs up the phone and sinks into his desk chair with slumped shoulders. It looks like Yuuri is on his own.

“Time for Plan P,” he says grimly, reaching for his laptop so he can draft an email to Yuri’s guardians to recommend a conference; with midterm just around the corner, parent-teacher conferences are scheduled to take place Friday evening from three until nine—cruelty in its simplest form, Yuuri thinks, but a necessary evil in any case.

As he types the sickeningly polite email, he repeatedly mutters under his breath, “I love my job, I love my job, I love my job…”

By the time the email is sent out, Yuuri almost believes it.

 

 

* * *

 

 

 

There is not a single teacher at Hasetsu High School who actually enjoys parent-teacher conferences. Yuuri is no exception.

Parent-teacher conferences are messy affairs full of carefully-chosen words, store-bought cookies and fruit-flavored punch, and the inevitable gnashing of teeth when parents are told their son or daughter isn’t doing nearly as well as they’d hoped in their classes. The night almost always ends with lots of yelling, insults, and _it’s_ art _class, how important can it be, really?_ Meanwhile, the teachers simply have to sit there and take it as it comes—all while dreaming about the red wine they’ll be drinking as soon as they get home.

Yuuri is one of the few teachers in the school who takes as much pride as he can in such events. They only happen twice a year—once in the fall, and again in the spring—so first impressions really, really count. Luckily, Yuuri has never failed any students before, so his turnout is usually pretty minimal, and the parents he manages to meet with are polite and understanding.

But Yakov Feltsman is coming tonight, and Yuuri is _scared_. Yakov is Hasetsu’s professional skating coach over at the Ice Palace, and he is known for his ruthlessness and his uncontrollable temper, especially when it comes to his adopted son, Yuri. He is tough, bristly, and frightening to look at for extended periods of time; Yuuri doesn’t even like seeing the man in the grocery store, let alone seeing him in Yuuri’s classroom to talking about his _failing son._

He has the urge to make sure the emergency exit of his room is propped open just in case he has to make a run for Kyoto. Changing his name and moving someplace far away wouldn’t be too difficult, right?

Taking a deep breath, Yuuri smooths out the manila envelope of Yuri Plisetsky’s paperwork on the table in front of him. He might die a grisly death tonight at the meaty hands of Yakov Feltsman, but he has to take that risk. He won’t let Yuri fail ceramics right before he graduates—not on his watch.

For the millionth time, Yuuri glances at the clock. It’s 8:15 PM—he has another fifteen minutes before conferences end, and there’s still no sign of Yakov. His email had agreed upon 8:10 PM for their meeting. It’s strange, Yuuri thinks. Yakov doesn’t seem like the type to be late.

He waits a few more minutes, idly letting his fingers trace a ridge of dried glue on the tabletop. He checks the time again; the clock is pushing 8:27 now, and Yuuri lets out a soft sigh. He had really hoped Yakov would make an appearance. He begins to gather up his materials.

Suddenly, the faint sound of footsteps down the hall. Yuuri perks up in his seat, re-straightening the folder and wiping a few specks of dust off the screen of his tablet. That _has_ to be him, but Yuuri is too terrified to get up and check. He simply waits as the footsteps get closer, heels echoing down the hallway at a clip. He plasters on a smile and—

And it’s a damn shame that he spent so much time planning this meeting, because his brain short-circuits immediately when a man who is decidedly not Yakov Feltsman comes to a stop in his doorway.

Viktor Nikiforov, the world-renowned figure skating champion and PyeongChang Olympic gold medalist, is in his art classroom, looking between the number above the door and his phone with a frown curving his perfectly-shaped mouth. He is standing, breathing, _existing_ in little Yuuri Katsuki’s high school art classroom like he’s supposed to be here. Like this isn’t some wildly-fabricated dream sequence, like Yuuri hasn’t died and gone to some strange circle of hell that reeks of sweaty teenagers, feet, and damp clay.

Contrary to popular belief, Yuuri does not, in fact, live under a rock. He goes outside just like everybody else, reads the news every once in a while, and watches an unhealthy amount of competitive figure skating whenever the season’s in swing. He has watched Viktor Nikiforov skate his way through the junior and senior ranks of the ISU for the last several years; he’s watched him grow as a person and stood by as his talent bloomed like the cherry blossoms that always burst forth from the trees in April.

Yuuri also knows Viktor Nikiforov because he may or may not have had an unhealthy number of posters of him when he was a teenager. But he’s not admitting _anything._

And then Viktor looks at him, and Yuuri’s mouth goes dry.

It should be illegal for someone to be that beautiful, Yuuri thinks numbly. His silver hair and alabaster skin deserve to be preserved in the finest oil paints money can buy, transposed onto a canvas and placed in a museum for the world to see. The blue of his eyes is a specific shade of phthalo turquoise that reminds Yuuri of tropical seas and slow-moving glaciers. Given a hunk of the finest Italian marble and a chisel, Yuuri could sculpt those cheekbones for the remainder of his days and die a happy man.

Viktor must be lost—heinously, embarrassingly lost, but lost nonetheless. The real Viktor Nikiforov is supposed to be doing a post-Olympics press tour in Russia right now, not stumbling into random high schools in Japan and staring wide-eyed at Yuuri Katsuki, Hasetsu’s resident nobody.

Viktor’s eyebrows draw together at the yawning silence, waiting for it to be filled with _something._ Yuuri knows he wouldn’t be able to speak even if someone paid him, so he doesn’t try.

Viktor shifts from foot to foot in the doorway. “Hi,” he says, shattering the silence. “Sorry to barge in like this, but I’m looking for the art teacher—“ he squints at his phone screen “—Yuuri Katsuki? I was told this was his classroom.”

Oh. That’s his name, isn’t it? He blinks hard and lets out a sharp breath he didn’t realized he’d been holding. Clears his throat. “Y-yeah— I mean _yes_. I’m Yuuri Katsuki.”

At first, Viktor’s eyes twinkle in amusement and his mouth twitches up at one corner in a devastating half-smile. Then, when Yuuri doesn’t say anything else, Viktor blinks and his smile disappears. “Oh, you’re serious.”

Yuuri blinks. He feels like he should be offended. “Um. Yes?”

Viktor does not know what to make of this. He frowns and peers around the room as if expecting another person to pop out and say _ta-da, I’m actually the art teacher!_ But when no one else spontaneously appears, Viktor looks back to Yuuri with thinly-veiled interest glinting in his eyes.

“Really, now? You are… _incredibly_ young to be a teacher,” he says, taking tentative steps into the room. He glances around at the plethora of student art hung on the walls, the linoleum block prints still drying on the rack in the corner, and smiles up at the clotheslines strung across the ceiling with not-quite-dry papers fluttering lazily in the air conditioned breeze. “When I saw you, I thought you were a student. Is this your first year of teaching?”

Yuuri feels a surge of defensiveness crop up in his chest as Viktor approaches; his perfect lips twitch in a suppressed, secretive smile that makes Yuuri feel like he’s being mocked in some roundabout way. He shifts in his seat. “This is my fifth year, actually.”

Viktor’s eyebrows fly up into his hairline. “Really? I never would have guessed.”

And for some strange reason, Yuuri _bristles_ at the implication _._ He’s aware of how young he looks, of course, but Phichit’s younger by three years and nobody ever asks _him_ if he’s a first-year teacher. Age has no correlation to skill level whatsoever, and the fact that someone like Viktor thinks he’s less because of how old he is—

Well. It just rubs him the wrong way.

The smirk on Viktor’s face is wider now, reeking with self-satisfaction. Yuuri clears his throat. “Look, Mr. Nikiforov, it is truly an honor—“

He grins. “Ah, so you do know who I am!”

Yuuri’s cheeks flush ever so slightly. “Of course I do,” he mutters. “Everybody who’s anybody knows who you are.”

“I think you’d be surprised, actually. I’m glad you know who I am, though. Saves me a lot of trouble.”

With a sharp exhale, Yuuri squares his shoulders and speaks up, “Right, yeah. Well, as I was saying, it’s an honor to meet you, sir, but…” Yuuri bites his lip. “I’m not quite sure what you’re doing here. In my classroom.” _Or in this country._

Viktor gives him a funny look. “I’m here for Yuri’s parent-teacher thingy, obviously.”

As if Yuuri could be _more_ surprised. He grips each side of the seat of his chair to keep from teetering over the edge. “Yuri’s your _son_? What even— I mean, _how—?_ ”

But Viktor only laughs, and it fills the room with its deceptive warmth. “Oh, heavens, no! I’m his godfather. Little Yura and I don’t share blood, unfortunately; only paperwork.”

At this, Yuuri relaxes a little bit. “Oh,” he says quietly. He doesn’t know the FERPA guidelines on sharing student information with godparents. Taking a guess, he says, “I guess that’s all right, then. Is Mr. Feltsman still planning on coming?”

Viktor sheds his coat—designer, of course, because why wouldn’t he wear a designer coat in a dusty, paint-spattered art room?—and hangs it on the back of his chair before sitting down across from him. He waves Yuuri off. “Oh, Yakov was planning on coming tonight, believe me, but he needed to stay late at the rink to finish prepping Yura for his senior debut, so he sent me instead! I just happen to be in town visiting. Isn’t that wonderful?”

“Wonderful,” Yuuri repeats numbly. “Right.”

Viktor lets out a dreamy sigh and rests his elbows against the tabletop, setting his chin in his hands as he looks at Yuuri. He smiles sweetly. “So, tell me: how old are you, really? I’m dreadfully curious.”

“I’m, uh…” he trails, swallowing down the sandpapery dryness in his throat as best as he can. “I’m sorry, but I don’t think my age is really important, Mr. Nikifor—“

“Please, call me Viktor. And let me assure you, your age is _incredibly_ important.”

“V-Viktor,” he stammers, the name foreign and clumsy on his tongue. “I really don’t see how my age is relevant at _all_. We’re here to talk about Yuri, not me.”

He pouts, and Yuuri’s toes curl in his shoes at the sight. “But shouldn’t we get to know each other a little bit before we talk business?” he asks. “I can hardly discuss little Yura with a stranger, now can I?”

Yuuri stares, fingers curled stiffly around the edges of the manila folder. _This isn’t real._ “Mr. Nikiforov—“

“Viktor,” he corrects.

“ _Mr. Nikiforov,”_ Yuuri says firmly, and Viktor’s eyebrows lift in surprise. He takes a deep breath and tries to collect his thoughts, swallowing back the bundle of nerves that keeps trying to creep up the back of his throat. “It’s not my job to tell you my personal information. If you’d like to see my credentials to prove I’m qualified for this position, I’ll gladly give you those, but I hardly see how my age makes me any less of a teacher for your godson.”

Viktor’s eyes widen. “That’s not—“

But Yuuri plows ahead. “Look, I’m sorry, all right? Find me outside of school and I’ll tell you anything you want to know, but if you’re not going to take this conference seriously, I’m afraid I’m going to have to ask you to leave. I requested this meeting for a reason.”

Telling a world-famous celebrity to get his shit together—politely—had not been on Yuuri’s agenda for today, but there’s a first time for everything, he supposes. He’s just thankful his Teacher Voice doesn’t waver.

Miraculously, Viktor heeds his words. His smile drops slowly and he swallows, eyebrows furrowing in a faint frown before he leans back in his chair. “Of course. I— I’m very sorry,” he says. His tone is flatter, more subdued, and Yuuri wants to kick himself. Viktor gestures widely. “Please, continue. I won’t interrupt again.”

Yuuri bites his lip and nods once, twice before lacing his finger together in his lap. “Thank you.”

This is the hard part. Telling a parent that their son or daughter is failing is a lot like walking across a bed of nails—it’s easier if you spread the pain across a larger surface area. Yuuri decides to lead with a compliment.

“As I’m sure you know, Yuri is a fine student,” he says carefully, chewing on the words before he utters them. “He never wastes class time and pays attention to my lectures and demonstrations. He’s incredibly bright for someone his age.”

A pause. _Go for the kill, but make it swift and painless._

Taking a deep breath, Yuuri finishes, “But lately, I’ve been a little, ah. Concerned about him.”

Viktor’s face screws up in puzzlement. “Concerned?”

Yuuri swallows down the crushed-glass anxiousness in his throat, wringing his hands beneath the tabletop until his skin burns. “He’s acting… strange. I don’t know. He’s just different this semester. I mean, I had him in graphic design last year and he was one of my best students, but in ceramics, it’s like invasion of the body snatchers or something.”

Worry mars Viktor’s face, and he straightens in his seat. “I’m not sure I understand. Is he fighting with the other students?”

“No, no,” Yuuri assures him. “Nothing like that. He’s just… failing my class.”

Viktor blinks and does not respond. At first, Yuuri is worried he’s said something in Japanese on accident—but then Viktor lets out a surprised breath in a sharp rush. He slumps back in his chair.

“Failing?” he repeats quietly. “How on earth can he be _failing_?”

“I don’t know,” Yuuri admits honestly. Opening the manila folder, he turns it around and slides it in Viktor’s direction. He points to the column of Yuri’s report card where a big, fat F glares up at them both. “He has a 53% right now. Last I checked, he’s missing about five assignments.”

Viktor doesn’t look up at him, scanning the paper with narrow-eyed focus. “Out of how many?”

“Eight.”

A soft Russia curse slips past Viktor’s lips, and Yuuri can’t help but think it’s the most beautiful sound he’s ever heard. _Focus, dammit._

Viktor cards his fingers through his hair anxiously. The lines on his face are taut and grim. “I had no idea. I’m sure Yakov doesn’t know, either, because there’s no way he would let Yura skate if he knew things were this bad.” Another curse. “Why wouldn’t he tell us this?”

Yuuri winces. “I don’t think most students tell their parents when they’re failing a subject. It’s hard to bounce back from a mark like this. He probably didn’t want to worry you.”

Viktor begins flipping through Yuuri’s paperwork, eyes scanning former assignments and preliminary sketches from this semester. Abruptly, he closes the file and looks up at Yuuri with his eyebrows set low over his too blue, too-beautiful eyes.

“All right,” he announces, spreading his hands on the tabletop. “What’s the plan?”

Yuuri blinks. “The plan?”

“Yes, the plan. The plan for getting little Yura back on track to graduation,” he says, waving dismissively. “How are you going to fix this?”

“ _Me_?” he squawks.

“You have a plan, yes? Yuri needs to make an A by the time the semester finishes up. What sort of extra credit will you be offering him?”

He asks that questions like it’s the most logical thing in the world, like extra credit is the _expected_ solution to this problem _._ As a rule, extra credit is not something Yuuri provides. It’s not something any self-respecting teacher provides, _period._ Extra credit is the fairy dust of the education world—shiny, miraculous, and _not fucking real._

Yuuri only shakes his head numbly. The bed of nails he’s treading on is getting more painful by the second. “I don’t offer extra credit in my classes, Mr. Nikiforov. My students earn their points. Giving away credit like candy defeats the purpose of my class.”

“But he’s _failing.”_

“And I hate that as much as you do, believe me,” he says firmly, “but I can’t give Yuri free points for—I don’t know, clapping erasers after school or something. He has to make up his assignments and work harder in the future. That’s all I can do for him.”

Viktor’s face sours, and he crosses his arms over his chest. “Then why did you call this meeting if you’re refusing to help him?”

Yuuri lets out an exasperated breath. “What? No! I’ve _offered_ to help him, Mr. Nikiforov. Truly, I have. That’s why I requested this meeting in the first place. Since midterm, Yuri’s turned me down three times. I can offer him my help until I’m blue in the mouth, but I can’t force him into after-school tutoring. I can’t make him _care._ ”

For a moment, Viktor appears to be thinking about possible solutions. His brow is creased in the most transfixing way, and Yuuri can’t help but watch in rapt attention as his index finger taps against his lower lip while he thinks.

“Well, why would he?” Viktor says smoothly. “It’s just art.”

_It’s just art._

Yuuri can’t—

He can’t _move._

The words hit him like the mental punch of a pendulum at the bottom of its swing. Blood runs hotly through his veins like molten metal, and his feels every ounce of nervousness drain from his body in an instant, replaced by equal parts outrage and hurt, so much _hurt_. It’s one thing to hear those words from an angry parent who’s upset their son’s been benched from the football team for a C on a project; it’s another thing entirely to hear it from the mouth of Yuuri’s figure skating idol and celebrity crush, his tone bland and almost bored.

Yuuri knows his hands are shaking as he reaches for the manila folder, but he doesn’t care. Closing it, Yuuri slides it back across the table and pushes his chair out as he stands.

“It’s 8:35,” he says quietly. A knot ties up his throat, and he tries to swallow past it. He carefully avoids looking at Viktor. “I’m afraid conferences ended five minutes ago. Thank you for coming tonight, Mr. Nikiforov. I’m sure you can find your way out of the building.”

Viktor sounds flustered. “Wait, what? I just got here.”

“I’m very sorry, Mr. Nikiforov. If you contact the front office, I’m sure we can connect you with our guidance counselor or our academic advisor—“

“You look upset. Have I said something wrong?”

Yuuri swallows. He picks up his tablet and tucks it and the folder against his chest, eyes still downcast. “Not at all,” he lies. “It’s just time for me to go home. My dog’s been cooped up all evening, and, uh… yeah. You know. It’s late.”

“I thought you wanted to walk about Yura,” he argues. He doesn’t sound angry—confused, maybe, but not angry.

“I’m afraid there’s not much more to discuss,” he admits. “I can’t make Yuri care about his—“

“I thought teachers were supposed to help their students succeed.”

Anger is an unfamiliar emotion for Yuuri, but he knows himself well enough to know when he’s about to lose his temper. He needs to escape this situation before he says something really, really stupid.

Yuuri’s fingers spasm, and he looks up at Viktor through his fringe. “Do not presume to tell me my job, Mr. Nikiforov. Even if you don’t think so, I care quite a bit about your godson’s education. I had hoped you’d be willing to lend me some secondary support from home to get his motivation up and running again, but that’s apparently not the case if all you expect me to do is give him extra credit. I will _not_ inflate his grade with points he doesn’t deserve.”

Viktor looks stunned. His cheeks are faintly pink, and he is shaking his head back and forth slowly. “That’s not— I mean… I-I think you misunderstood me. Sorry. My English—”

“I think I understood you perfectly,” Yuuri snaps. Stepping around the end of the desk, Yuuri heads for the messenger bag that’s slung over the back of his chair. He tucks his things inside and slings it over his shoulder. “I’ll help Yuri however I can with the time we have left in the semester. I recommend you try to figure out why he’s doing this so suddenly, and maybe we’ll be able to figure something out before he flunks out of my course. Good night, Mr. Nikiforov.”

Yuuri doesn’t watch Viktor leave. He’s not sure he’d be able to look him in the eye, given the chance, so he busies himself with straightening up his desk and setting out lesson plans and rubrics for the following Monday. A shuffle of fabric as Viktor dons his coat, the clack of expensive-sounding heels against tile as he heads toward the door.

“Well, it was very nice to meet you, Yuuri Katsuki,” he says quietly. “I’m sure I’ll see you again soon.”

Yuuri waves over his shoulder, not looking up from his Very Important Task of organizing his paperclips. “Of course. Have a good night, Mr. Nikiforov.”

The click of the door, and Viktor slips out, taking most of the air in the room with him. As soon as the sound of his footsteps disappears down the hall, Yuuri takes the chance to sag against the corner of his desk. He lets out a shuddering breath that almost feels like a sob.

God, parent-teacher conferences are the _worst_.


	2. Cone 06

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Well, this got one hell of a response. I guess I'll turn this into something longer since you all asked so nicely. :)
> 
> (Also, shout-out to all my fellow teachers. Your comments made me happy, and I hope this fic helps you realize that you are not alone out there. We're fighting the good fight!)

After parent-teacher conferences, Yuuri goes out and buys some red wine.

He has no idea if the bottle he grabs at the supermarket is any good—only that it’s cheap and has a blue label with a French name embossed in gold that he can’t be bothered to translate at the moment. He tosses it on the conveyor belt without a second thought, knowing full well that it’ll taste exactly the same as every other wine on the shelf; it’s pretty hard to have a refined palate for red wine when you’re twenty-seven and your mom still buys underwear for you at Christmastime, after all.

_I thought you were a student. Is this your first year of teaching?_

Later, Yuuri finds himself stumbling around his apartment in slippers with a bathrobe hanging loosely off his shoulders, bottle in hand and glasses left untouched on the kitchen table. The wine is fruity and goes to his head as soon as it hits his stomach, flooding his veins with a comfortable numbness that dulls the jagged edges of his anxiety.

_It’s just art._

Stupid Viktor. Stupid parent-teacher conferences. Stupid _everything._

He ends up flipping his laptop open and pulling up reruns of Viktor Nikiforov’s award-winning routine from the 2018 Olympics, muttering curses every time he lands an axel or a Lutz or whatever the hell those jumps are called because _who fucking cares_. He’s too far gone to count rotations. He’s too far gone for just about everything, really, save for cursing and fumbling with his wine bottle. All Yuuri knows is that he’s mad. Really, really mad.

He’s mad at Viktor. He’s mad at himself for falling to pieces so easily. He’s also mad at himself for not catching Yuri’s slipping grades sooner. He should’ve noticed, should’ve reached out. Maybe Yuuri could’ve prevented that 53% from ever happening, and then he never would’ve had to hear those words from the mouth of Viktor Nikiforov—Yuuri’s idol, his _everything._

Swallowing thickly, Yuuri clicks on another video from Nationals 2017—the _Lacrimosa_ routine that beat Viktor’s personal best in the short program, and one of Yuuri’s favorites. As he watches Viktor twirl and float across the ice, he takes another swig of wine and takes the time to sulk.

_It’s just art._

Yuuri isn’t sure when he falls asleep, but he slips away somewhere in between Viktor’s quadruple flip and his triple axel. He dreams in Technicolor.

 

* * *

 

 

Though it is widely debated in many circles, Yuuri Katsuki is, in fact, a fully-functioning adult. Of course, he has his off days, same as everyone else, but he can usually manage some facsimile of responsibility and assuredness by the time he rolls into school to begin teaching.

Usually.

He wakes up on Monday morning with a tension headache. He drinks his coffee and burns his tongue, crams his leftover grading in before the first bell, and plasters a smile on his face for the students that feels more like a grimace than anything else. As far as Mondays go, it’s not bad.

The painting and drawing classes go well enough, at first. Graphic design is a disaster, but Yuuri’s not altogether shocked—the Macs in the lab are practically prehistoric, and getting them to run Photoshop without lagging is like trying to roll a boulder uphill; he is Sisyphus to the school’s waning technological needs. One of these days, he will be crushed beneath that boulder, squashed thinner than rice paper and left behind in the dust.

Funnily enough, that option’s actually starting to sound rather appealing.

When he returns to his classroom for planning period, Yuuri sinks into his chair and drops his forehead against the surface of his desk with a loud _thunk._ He can’t think, can’t focus.

_It’s just art._

Yeah, and figure skating is just ice dancing with jumps.

Fuck Viktor Nikiforov. Yuuri scowls down at the wood grain in front of his eyes like it has personally wronged him. Fuck Viktor and his fancy designer shoes and his hair that looks like it’s woven out of starlight, like the man in the moon came down out of the sky and painted him into existence with the tail end of a comet. Fuck. Him.

The sound of a bag dropping heavily onto his desk has Yuuri shooting ramrod straight in his seat.

Yuri Plisetsky looks remarkably unhappy to be standing in Yuuri’s classroom—unhappier than usual, at least. (Then again, he usually looks unhappy about pretty much everything, so it’s impossible for Yuuri to know for certain.) His hair is tied back in a ratty bun at the nape of his neck and his collar is askew, like he couldn’t be bothered to button it all the way before he left for school. His lips are pursed and his sea-glass eyes narrowed into slits, sharp enough to cut.

Yuuri snaps out of his stupor, shoving his glasses up his nose until it hurts. “Yuri. What are you—“

“I’m here for tutoring.”

And for one brief, flickering moment, Yuuri is absolutely positive that he’s dreaming.

Yuuri blinks up at his student owlishly, mouth opening and closing as he struggles for words. He only has partial sentences, a continuous string of _what_ and _are-you-serious_ that runs through his head like a carousel—spinning, spinning, spinning.

“Uh— what?” he stammers eloquently, because _yes,_ Yuuri Katsuki does indeed have a college degree and knows how to use his words. Shaking his head, he tries again. “Sorry, you— _what?”_

Yuri rolls his eyes up toward the ceiling. “Okay, if you’re going to say it like that, I’m gonna just leave—“

“No! No, don’t do that,” he cries, waving his hands frantically. “I’m just surprised. The last couple times I asked, you were pretty adamant about not wanting my help.”

Yuri snags the foot of a stool with the toe of his shoe and drags it over, sitting down with a huff. He glares down at his lap. “Well, I don’t really have a choice anymore, so.”

“W-what do you mean?”

“Don’t play stupid,” he snaps suddenly. Glaring up at Yuuri, he sneers, “I know you met with Viktor on Friday for conferences. He told me all about it.”

He says Viktor’s name so easily, the letters rolling off his tongue like he’s referring to an actual person and not an internationally-ranked figure skater who, by all accounts, should not be in the Middle of Nowhere, Japan. Yuuri is still having trouble believing that Viktor is his student’s godfather, of all things.

Yuri barrels on, ignoring Yuuri’s dumbstruck expression. “He ratted me out to my coach the second you snitched at the conference. I’m stuck with off-ice practices until I can bring my grade back up, and Nationals is in six weeks—so, yeah. Thanks for that.”

 “I didn’t mean— I just wanted to help, Yuri,” he supplies lamely. “Look, I know this isn’t a required class for you, but it’ll still affect your GPA if you fail, and I don’t want that any more than you do. Don’t you want to graduate? Go to college?”

“Like you care,” he grumbles. Yuri picks at a popped seam on the cuff of his sleeve, fingers twisting the loose threads until they fray further. “And I’m not planning on going to college anyway, so I don’t see why any of this matters.”

“It matters because _you_ matter,” Yuuri says sharply. His voice sounds like a stranger’s, all authoritative and fiery. “You deserve a good future, Yuri, just like everybody else. I don’t want to see you throw it away just because you’re losing your focus.”

“I _am_ focused!”

“On skating, sure,” he says. “But not on schoolwork. You need to have a balance of the two if you want to succeed.”

“I have to focus on skating,” he snaps suddenly, standing up from his seat. Pale pink roses blossom in Yuri’s cheeks and his eyebrows scrunch, jaw clenching in time with his heartbeat. “I just— I have to, all right? It’s got to be my priority.”

Yuuri bites the inside of his cheek until his teeth meet. A long, lengthy exhale: “And yet you’re here, talking to me about tutoring.”

“I don’t have a choice! Yakov won’t let me on the ice until I make at least a C.”

“Because he knows how important your education is,” Yuuri argues softly. He purses his lips, thinking for a second. “I can talk to your coach and work out a schedule around your training, if that would make you feel better. I’m sure we can get your grades back on track before your competition.”

And at this, Yuri perks up. Yuuri sees hope flash across his face for half an instant, the emotion flickering faster than he can track it. Crossing his arms over his stomach, the boy mutters suspiciously, “I could go for that, I suppose. What did you have in mind?”

Suddenly, the plan lays itself out in Yuuri’s head, unfurling like parchment across a large table. Colors bleed, ink dries, and the way is clear.

“You’d study with me after school twice a week,” he starts. “Doesn’t matter what days you choose, I’m pretty flexible. We’d only work for an hour or two at a time, so you’d be able to fit in skating afterwards and on your off days.”

“And that would be enough time to boost my grade?” he asks doubtfully.

Yuuri nods his head once, the motion sharp and precise. “I believe so, yes.”

For several seconds, Yuri does not say a word. He bites his lower lip and frowns down at his lap, picking at his fingernails while he thinks. Yuuri grips the sides of his chair until his joints creak under the pressure, until he’s worried he’ll splinter the wood between his fingers out of sheer nervousness. _Say yes, say yes, please say yes._

A deep exhale. Yuri meets his teacher’s eyes with an intensity that burns.

“Okay,” he says. “Let’s do this.”

  

* * *

 

 

In retrospect, Yuuri really should’ve known how difficult it would be to tutor Yuri Plisetsky one-on-one.

Despite his grace and nimbleness on the ice, he seems to have two left hands when it comes to working with clay. By the time their first tutoring session is over, Yuri has crushed two half-constructed coil pots, bent a metal rib into a nearly-unrecognizable shape with his thumb (“You _told_ me to bend it!”), and snapped the handle on the heavy-duty clay extruder that’s been bolted to the wall since 1987.

If Yuuri didn’t feel his budget draining a little bit more with every muttered _oops_ and _oh, fuck_ , it would actually be pretty funny.

“All right,” Yuuri breathes, bracing his hands against his hips and taking a step back from the clay-crusted worktable. His fingers are caked with dried earthenware, and he can already feel his cuticles splitting as the oils are leeched systematically from his hands. “Maybe we should stop for today.”

Yuri only frowns at his destroyed coil pot. He looks oddly discouraged. “Katsuki-sensei, I don’t think I’m cut out for this sort of thing.”

Yuuri opens his mouth to object—hand building is _hard,_ and it always takes lots of practice to master, just like everything else in the art world—but he stops himself. An idea begins to form.

“Maybe… maybe you’re right.”

Yuri looks up, betrayal written across his features. “What the hell? You’re not supposed to _agree_ with that.”

But the wheels are turning in Yuuri’s head, spinning faster and faster with each passing second. His foot begins to tap nervously against the tile. He beckons his student toward the back of the room where the storage closet is.

“I have an idea. Come help me with something real quick.”

It takes quite a bit of shoving, grunting, and cursing in the darkness of the large storage closet at the back of the art room, but eventually the two men manage to haul out the large, awkwardly-shaped machine and set it near the sink by the largest window. It’s dusty and needs some greasing, but it’s in near-mint condition.

Yuri looks apprehensive, his gaze flicking back and forth between it and his teacher as Yuuri scrutinizes it. He throws up his hands. “All right, enough with the _Beautiful Mind_ shit already. What is this thing?”

Yuuri takes a deep breath. “This,” he begins slowly, “is a potter’s wheel. I’m— well, I’m actually going to let you use it.”

“What?” He almost sounds shocked, then vaguely suspicious. “I thought only advanced students got to use stuff like this.”

Shifting a foot forward onto the pedal, the bat begins to spin with only minor squeaking. Yuuri shrugs, stuffing his hands in the pocket of his apron. “It’s not that I don’t _want_ to teach you guys how to throw on the wheel—I just don’t have the resources to do it. These things are expensive, so we only have one. It’s hard to teach twenty kids how to throw when there’s only one wheel, you know?”

“Have you ever let students use this thing before?”

“No,” Yuuri answers honestly. It sounds stupid, but he tells him, “I’ve been a little too… I don’t know. Scared, I guess? If this thing breaks, I don’t have the budget to replace it.”

Yuri’s face screws up. “No offense, but that’s really stupid, sensei. If you have it, you should use it.”

“I know,” he admits. He exhales long and slow through his teeth. “Trust me, I know. But it’s hard for me to teach one kid how to use it in a room of twenty-five, and we haven’t had any advanced ceramics students in the last few years. There hasn’t been a lot of reason for me to dig this thing out of storage until now.”

“What, so I’m your guinea pig?”

“Sort of.” Yuuri bites his lip. “I just want to try every avenue to help you get your grade up. If you’re having trouble with hand building, you might prefer this method. It’s a little faster, gives you that instant gratification.”

Yuri frowns at the spinning surface of the wheel. He looks doubtful. “Is it hard to learn?”

“Incredibly so.”

He sputters, takes a step away from the machine as if it could reach out to strike him. “Then why the _hell_ —“

“Because I think you can do it,” Yuuri says simply. He eases his foot off the pedal and turns to face his student, who happens to look like he’s been sucking on a lemon for the last few minutes. Yuuri fixes him with a determined stare. “You’re impatient with your clay, Yuri, so your pots keep collapsing. This could fix that. With the right training, I think you could learn to throw pots on the wheel and do it _well_. It’ll be frustrating, yes, but if you can master this by the end of the year, it’ll put you miles ahead of everyone else in class.”

Yuri glances at the wheel, eyes narrowed. His lips quirk up on one side. “So if I use this thing, I won’t have to do projects in class anymore? ‘Cause that’s what it sounds like you’re telling me.”

“Nice try, kiddo.”

Yuri shrugs and takes a seat on the short stool in front of the wheel, rolling his shoulders. “Eh, it was worth a shot. So, how the hell do I do this? Teach me your ways, sensei.”

 

* * *

  

The first attempt does not go well. Neither do the second, third, fourth, and fifth attempts—or _any_ of the attempts after that, really.

#

“No, don’t use your upper body strength. Brace your elbows against your hips, Yuri. Your _hips._ Oh, for the love of— are you even listening to me?”

#

As the clock rolls over to 3:45 PM, Yuuri wonders if he has any wine left at home.

#

“How did you get clay on the _ceiling?_ ”

#

As his student’s lump of misshapen clay slide off the bat again, Yuuri wonders if he has something stronger than wine at home.

#

It’s 4:37 PM by the time Yuri gets his clay centered on the wheel. It is a small, miniscule victory—but a victory nonetheless. Yuuri will take what he can get.

 

* * *

 

 

_Two weeks later_

 

There are many perks that come with being a teacher: you get holidays off, you have the daily satisfaction of teaching someone something new and interesting, and most importantly of all, there are usually some pretty _amazing_ snacks at faculty meetings.

Supervising sports events, however, is not one of those perks.

The March air is brisk against Yuuri’s face as he sinks deeper into the confines of his jacket, nose pressed against the coarse fabric as he watches the soccer game. The field is abuzz with activity he doesn’t fully understand—the home team runs one direction, the other team doesn’t seem to be very happy with this development, and there’s a lot of yelling going on that he can’t make out from this distance. He recognizes a few of his students as they sprint past the student section Yuuri’s supposed to be watching.

The Hasetsu Hobgoblins score another goal, and the stands around him go absolutely nuts. Hooray, he supposes. Sound the clarions. Hurl the confetti. Do a jig.

He really, _really_ doesn’t understand this sport.

In a moment of weakness, he throws a wistful glance over his shoulder in the direction of the school. Yuuri could be grading right now, dammit. He could be working on his lesson plans for the web design unit that’s coming up in graphic design. He could be at home with his leopard-print Snuggie and Vicchan’s companionable warmth at his side, cuddled up on the couch while he shirks his duties and watches cheesy American soap operas until his eyes bleed.

Instead, Yuuri’s trapped here, sitting a few rows behind the student section and making sure they don’t start chucking rotten fruit and insults alike at the opposing team every time they run past.

_I love my job. I love my job. I love my job._

The student section is packed should-to-shoulder with kids from the high school, all of them wearing beach-style clothing to match the proposed theme. Most of them are wearing sunglasses and sandals (he has no idea how their toes aren’t frozen, seeing as it’s an uncharacteristically cold day today), and a few have overly large straw hats on their heads.

Yuuri spots Yuri Plisetsky at the front of the mass of kids with inflatable floaties on his arms and Bermuda shorts, his hair tied in a messy bun on the top of his head. He’s murmuring something to his friend—Otabek, Yuuri thinks? Otabek’s not one of his students, so he can’t be sure, but he’s heard Yuri talk about him during tutoring. They must be good friends.

Yuuri watches as Otabek leans down and murmurs something in Yuri’s ear—something that makes him smile. It’s nice to see him smile so freely; he doesn’t do enough of it.

The student section begins buzzing as one of Hasetsu’s star players nears the goal, feet moving in a flurry that Yuuri can’t track with his eyes at this distance. The students are shouting, grabbing each other blindly as they stare out at the field, wide-eyed with—

The Hasetsu player shoots, he scores.

The kids go _wild_. The bleachers shudder beneath Yuuri as the students all simultaneously leap to their feet, screaming wildly in support of the goal, voices cracking, shrill and ear-splitting with joy and unbridled school spirit. Yuuri can’t help but smile at the overzealous display, just barely managing to scoot out of the way of some ill-aimed silly string from a few sophomores who aren’t “cool” enough to hang out at the front with the seniors and juniors.

High school students may be crazy, but at least they’re never boring.

Yuuri is too busy scanning the student section for misbehavior—Carson Daley is trying to pull Jordan Fredrickson’s pants down to his ankles when he’s not looking, so Yuuri gives him The Look and watches in satisfaction as the blood drains from his face in an instant—to notice when someone takes a seat next to him on the frigid, metal bleachers. He simply shifts aside to allow the person some room and hums, eyes narrowing as Finnie Gunsten tries to convince the other senior boys at the front of the student section to take their shirts off with him as a show of support to their classmates on the field.

Yuuri simply sighs. _Come on, Finnie, we’ve talked about this. No public nudity—_

“Hello, Yuuri!”

His head snaps around so fast he gives himself minor whiplash. 

Viktor Nikiforov is at a soccer game. Viktor Nikiforov is sitting next to Yuuri at a soccer game. Viktor Nikiforov is wearing a very expensive—well, everything, and he is sitting next to Yuuri at a goddamn _soccer game._

“ _Gah_ ,” he sputters eloquently, half-falling off the bench in shock. Yuuri’s mouth goes dry at the sight of him; his paint-spattered trousers and iron oxide-stained sneakers suddenly feel entirely inadequate.

He blinks once, twice, waiting for the extremely convincing mirage to evaporate before his eyes.

Except it… doesn’t? Viktor remains just as corporeal as he appears, windswept hair and alabaster skin included in a neat, airbrushed package that looks worthy of the latest cover of _Gentleman’s Quarterly_.

(What the hell. What the _hell._ )

Viktor’s eyebrows furrow as Yuuri’s lengthy silence. He cocks his head to one side, silver hair slipping out from behind his ear. “You… don’t seem happy to see me.”

“I’m not,” Yuuri says automatically. Viktor’s eyebrows shoot up into his hairline and his mouth parts in surprise. But Yuuri’s face flushes and he shakes his head, waving his hands wildly. “I mean— oh my god, that came out wrong. So wrong. Sorry, I’m—“ He stops, tries to breathe, and fails. “You’re _here._ ”

Viktor’s lips twitch is amusement. “Ah… yes? I am here. Glad we can agree on something.”

“Why?”

Viktor frowns. “Well, I was hoping we’d be able to agree on at least one thing this time around. We didn’t get off on the right foot—”

“No,” he says, stopping him, “Why are you _here?_ At this soccer game.” _Why are you in Japan? Why are you torturing me?_

Viktor’s eyes sparkle as he looks at him; Yuuri tries not to fidget. Suddenly, the brisk March air feels much warmer than it did a minute ago.

“Last time we spoke, I said I would see you again soon, didn’t I?” Viktor asks him, as if it’s the most obvious thing in the world. He shrugs and gestures toward the student section. “Yura mentioned you would be here, so I decided to pop by and have a chat with you while I could. You’re an incredibly difficult man to find, Yuuri Katsuki.”

He tries not to read too much into the fact that Viktor—world-famous, incredibly gorgeous Viktor—has been asking Yuri about Yuuri’s whereabouts without being held at gunpoint or otherwise coerced with drugs, torture, or lavish amounts of money. He doesn’t quite know what to make of this development.

“A chat,” he repeats numbly. He swallows. “Sounds… ominous.”

It actually sounds rather wonderful. Yuuri’s inner fanboy has transcended happiness and lust and gone straight to pure, unadulterated ecstasy in the face of near-Photoshopped perfection. He hopes it doesn’t show on his face.

But their last conversation weighs heavily in the back of his mind, lingering like an oily shadow, a stain on an otherwise lovely first impression. _It’s just art. It’s just art. It’s just—_

(Fuck. His bone structure is incredible. Yuuri wonders if he’d model for some drawings.)

Viktor laughs breezily, eyes crinkling at the corners with mirth. Somewhere on the field, someone scores a goal; the crowd goes wild, but they’re only white noise to Yuuri’s ears at this point. He doesn’t tear his gaze from Viktor’s face.

“Actually,” Viktor begins, tracing a fingertip across the raised ridges of the bleachers between them. He almost looks—nervous? He worries at his lower lip. “I was sort of hoping you’d give me the chance to apologize for my behavior the last time we spoke. I tend to, ah. Speak before I think. I’m sorry.”

Yuuri blinks. “That was almost three weeks ago.”

“I know, trust me. Why do you think I’ve been trying to track you down?”

Oh _._

He’s _guilty_. Yuuri tries not to visibly deflate—of course Viktor would only seek him out to clear his own conscience. Yuuri would be stupid to think there’s anything more to it than that. He tries not to look disappointed.

“Right. Of course.” He clears his throat and squares his shoulders, returning his gaze to the soccer game and the amorphous student section in front of him. His voice is lighter than he feels. “Well, consider the whole thing forgotten. Happens all the time.”

“I really didn’t mean to come off sounding so callous during that meeting. I felt so horrible when I realized,” Viktor says, and to his credit, he does sound vaguely ashamed. “I know how important art can be in education. As a skater, saying otherwise was very hypocritical of me. People always tell me that what I do isn’t a real sport, you know.”

“Well, they’re idiots,” Yuuri says instinctively. “You shouldn’t listen to them.”

“And you shouldn’t listen to _me_ ,” Viktor tells him fervently. He shakes his head, hair catching the waning sunlight like quicksilver. “After spending so long in Russia, my English is still a bit rusty; I should’ve thought out the translation more before I said those things to you.”

Yuuri frowns down at his lap and pops his knuckles nervously, joint by joint until the tension bleeds from them. He exhales slowly. “Really, it’s— it’s okay, Mr. Nikiforov. I appreciate you taking the time to apologize like this. Most parents aren’t, uh… well, they’re usually not this nice about it.”

And he’s surprised to find that he _means_ it. A weight has been lifted from his shoulders. _My figure skating idol doesn’t think my passions are pointless. That has to count for something, right?_

Viktor must hear the sincerity in his tone. He gives Yuuri a hopeful smile. “So you accept my apology?”

“Yes,” he replies, but the sound is drowned out by jeering from the student section, so he nods as well. The message is clear.

Viktor lets out a relieved breath and he rakes his fingers through his hair in a way that should mess up his carefully-cultivated locks, but somehow manages to make him look ten times better. It’s just not _fair._

“Thank you,” he breathes, gifting Yuuri with a thousand-watt smile. “I’ll admit, I was worried you wouldn’t. I had lots of counter-arguments planned out.”

“Counter-arguments?”

“Back-up plans,” he clarifies. “Honestly, I was this close to writing down all of my lines on notecards.”

An image flashes through Yuuri’s mind: Viktor, bent over a desk with a pen in hand, his face bathed in yellow lamplight and a furrow between his brows as he writes edge-to-edge on a notecard. Yuuri smiles. “That’s… weirdly charming. Did you—“

A sudden movement in the student section and the murmurs increase, even though no goal has been scored. _Alert, alert, alert._ Through the undulating crowd, Yuuri spots a flash of pinkish skin, and suddenly he shoots to his feet before his brain can catch up with the rest of him.

“ _Finnie Gunsten, put your shirt back on right this instant!”_

The students all turn to look at Finnie, who is clutching his t-shirt in white-knuckled hands as he stares up at Yuuri. The students begin to laugh and tease him good-naturedly. (“ _Ooooohhh,_ Katsuki-sensei’s pissed!”) Finnie scrambles to put his shirt back on, his cheeks flushed red with shame.

Yuuri lets out a breath once the commotion has died down, and he sinks back into his seat. At his side, Viktor’s eyebrows are high on his forehead, his lips parted in surprise.

“Sorry,” he tells Viktor, how voice sounding unusually quiet to his own ears. He wrings his hands together in his lap. “I, uh. I usually don’t yell like that.”

Viktor looks like he’s fighting a smile. “Oh, no apology necessary, I assure you. It was very entertaining to watch. Is stripping a common occurrence for this sort of event?”

“Absolutely,” Yuuri says, nodding. “Finnie’s a repeat offender. I’ve had my eye on him all afternoon.”

Viktor regards him carefully, eyes sparkling. “I see,” he says. He leans toward Yuuri and taps his lower lip, cocking his head to one side as if trying to figure something out. “You’re a very interesting person, Yuuri Katsuki. I hope you know that.”

The most interesting thing Yuuri’s ever done is eat five consecutive bowls of katsudon in a one-hour period without throwing up, beating his own previous record of four and a half. Viktor’s probably just saying that to be nice.

“Trust me, I’m not that interesting,” Yuuri says lamely, turning his gaze back to the field. He watches the cheerleaders do flips in front of the bleachers, their smiles bright and blinding. “Teaching’s not as glamorous as figure skating by, like, a _huge_ margin. You don’t have to flatter me.”

“But you’re an artist, aren’t you? That sounds so glamorous.”

If living in a box counts as glamorous, then sure. Yuuri winces. “I wouldn’t really consider myself to be an artist per se, and it’s definitely not glamorous. It’s kind of hard to make your own art when you’re teaching, you know? Not a lot of free time.”

Viktor frowns. “So you teach people how to make art but never make any for yourself?”

“I mean, there’s more to it than that—but yeah, that’s the gist of it.”

“How selfless of you,” Viktor hums, appreciative. A smile plays at the corner of his mouth.

Yuuri shrugs and claps perfunctorily as the crowd roars in appreciation of yet another scored goal by the Hasetsu Hobgoblins; he’s not really watching the game anymore. “It’s a living,” he says simply. “Not a great one, but I’m happy enough.”

Viktor looks vaguely horrified. “Are you any good?”

“At what, creating art?” Viktor nods, and Yuuri tries his best not to fidget. “I mean, I guess? I’m qualified to teach kids how to make stuff without it looking horrible, so I guess that means I’m not half-bad. I’m not good enough to support myself on commissions, though.” Yuuri pauses, wracking his brain for a moment. “I, uh, actually don’t remember the last time I got a commission from someone. Like I said, free time is the problem. I just don’t have a lot of it.”

Viktor leans forward, bracing his elbows against his knees and setting his chin in his hands. He smiles up at Yuuri, crowding his space like personal boundaries are more of a gentle suggestion rather than guidelines. “I’m sure you’re just being modest. If you weren’t good, Yura wouldn’t come to practice bragging about you all the time.”

Yuuri starts. “He— _what?”_

But Viktor just nods enthusiastically, his blue eyes wide enough to drown in. “Oh, yes. He’d never say it to your face, but I think he admires you a great deal. You’re his favorite teacher.”

The words don’t compute. They don’t even sound English. Yuri doesn’t have a favorite anything, much less a teacher _._ He only likes leopard-print fashion atrocities, silver chains, the color black, and the after-school anarchy club that probably doesn’t exist but _should_ because Yuri would totally be president if it were a real thing.

Yuuri glances toward the front of the student section where Yuri and Otabek are glaring out at the field, stiller than statues and just as entertained as emotionless chunks of granite.

“That’s not—“ Yuuri runs a hand over his face. “That’s impossible. Yuri hates me.”

“I don’t see how anyone could hate you, much less my godson,” Viktor coos. He leans even closer, forcing Yuuri to tip back precariously on the edge of the bench, and Viktor reaches out to touch Yuuri’s chin, his thumb ghosting over his lower lip. “You are very charming, Yuuri. Don’t undersell yourself. Especially not to me.”

Yuuri wants to tell him that he’s made a living on underselling himself and he’s done just fine all these years, thank you very much, but he can only swallow the words back down because Viktor is very, very close and Yuuri doesn’t know what to _do_.

_He smells like sandalwood and fabric softener. Jesus Christ._

Yuuri makes some kind of horrific squeaking noise and scoots to his left, cramming himself against the metal railing of the bleachers like Viktor has the plague. The Russian man looks disappointed—but no, that can’t be possible.

The expression is gone before Yuuri can decipher it.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A bit short, but the next two will be hella long. I've got plans for this fic, and it's fun to write, so don't worry. I'll make sure to finish it. Drop me a line and tell me your favorite part, or even your least favorite! I'm not picky. I love all the feedback. :)


	3. Cone 04

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Enjoy, nerds.

_WORLD-CHAMPION FIGURE SKATER VIKTOR NIKIFOROV TO MAKE ICE CASTLE HASETSU HIS HOME BASE_

_(see section 2A to continue reading)_

Yuuri stares down at the newspaper on his front steps with wide, unblinking eyes, his bag slung over his shoulder and water bottle in hand. Somewhere in his neighborhood, a car alarm begins to blare, drowning out the chirping birds in the trees overhead. He hears the tinkle of a bike bell pass by, the low hum of cars in the distance. It all bleeds into white noise.

He reads the headline again. And again. One more time.

For a moment, Yuuri considers turning back around and going back to bed because _surely_ he’s dreaming. He’s had this particular dream before, actually, so it only makes sense. Right?

But then the scent of cherry blossoms fills his nostrils with its sharp sweetness and Yuuri knows that this is actually happening. It’s eight-thirty in the morning on a Saturday at the end of March, and all of this is _real, so real._

_Oh, god._

He leaves the newspaper on his doorstep, scared that touching it will somehow shatter the delicate grip he’s got on reality at the moment. He puts the headline out of his mind as best he can on his way to Ice Castle Hasetsu. He almost gets into three car wrecks on the way there—but hey, he’s not thinking about Viktor Nikiforov when he does it, so at least there’s an upside to his rapidly-increasing insurance rates.

When he finally stumbles through the front doors of the rink, duffel bag slung over his shoulder, Yuuko gives him a worried look from behind the counter.

“Yuuri-kun,” she says, setting a pair of rental skates back on the rack. Her hair is tied up in a ponytail that’s rapidly losing altitude as the morning drags on, and the haunted look in her eyes tells Yuuri that the rink must be booked for a children’s birthday party this afternoon. “What are you doing here so early?”

He considers giving her the tried-and-true greeting he’d planned out since getting in his car. He considers stepping into the rink arena and heading toward the back wall that’s supposed to play host to a mural of some kind, or so Yuuko had told him two months ago. (“Whatever you want it to be, Yuuri-kun, just as long as it’s pretty and has lots of cool colors. Ooh, can it be _modern?_ ”) He even considers pulling out his skates to go for a couple laps around the ice just to unwind.

He doesn’t do any of that.

Yuuri trudges up to the front desk and drops his bag of art supplies on the counter unceremoniously. He struggles to put his thoughts together. “Yuuko, you’d tell me if I was going crazy, right?”

She blinks. “Um. Yes?”

Yuuri nods, ignoring her hesitance. “Oh, good. Because I think I’m going crazy.”

Her face twists into a strange mixture of equal parts perplexed and amused. “All right,” she tells him slowly, stepping over to the counter. She braces her elbows against the surface. “I’ll bite. Why are you going crazy?”

It sounds crazy even before it leaves his mouth, but this is Yuuko, and if she tells him it’s nuts, then it obviously has to be. Yuuri just needs to _know._ He takes a breath.

“I think Viktor Nikiforov is stalking me,” he says in a rush, so it actually sounds more like “IthinkViktorNikiforovisstalkingme,” but he’s already flushed and too freaked out to say it again any slower. He just sort of rolls with it.

Yuuko just gives him a flat look. “Viktor Nikiforov?” she asks, raising one eyebrow. “The skater?”

He nods once, sharply. “Yes.”

“The Russian guy who’s been using my rink for the last three weeks.”

“Yep.”

“Tall, silver hair, lots of medals stashed in his sock drawer— _that_ Viktor Nikiforov?”

Yuuri swallows, wondering how Yuuko knows he stores his medals in his sock drawer—actually, she’s probably not telling the truth, so he simply responds with, “Uh… yeah?”

Yuuko stares at him.

Then she bursts out laughing.

Yuuri feels his cheek flush and he takes a cautionary step backwards, almost like each of Yuuko’s guffaws is a missile he has to dodge. Her eyes are squeezed shut and tears are beginning to trickle out of the corners as she gasps for breath.

“Oh my god,” she wheezes, clutching the counter for balance. “You’re— you’re right. You’ve lost your mind. _Viktor Nikiforov_ is not—“ and she dissolves into peals of laughter that fill the lobby.

Yuuri glances around nervously to check for any prying eyes and ears. When he finds none, he mutters, “All right, keep it down. It’s not that funny.”

“It is,” she insists, gulping down breaths like she’s choking on her own humor. “It really is. I mean, I know you’ve loved the guy since we were kids, but just because he’s moving here doesn’t mean he’s stalking you. Honestly, he probably doesn’t even know who you—”

“Oh, he knows who I am,” Yuuri says flatly.

She gives him an incredulous look. “Bullshit. He barely even knows who _I_ am, and I see him almost every day.”

Yuuri stuffs his hands in the pockets of his track pants and rocks back and forth on his heels, chewing on his words before he spits them out. His voice is slow, methodical: “Well, I may or may not be failing his godson in ceramics. So… he totally knows who I am.”

He tells her the whole story, starting with that goddamn 53% and ending with the very confusing soccer game that Yuuri’s still not convinced wasn’t some elaborate hallucination borne of renegade pastel dust or expired instant coffee. When he’s done, Yuuko’s jaw is slack and her eyes are uncharacteristically wide.

“Oh my god,” she says. “He is _totally_ stalking you.”

 

* * *

 

The next week passes without error. Yuuri begins to fidget.

It’s… weird. Things are actually going _well_ for once. Every morning before school, Yuuri drags himself out of bed in a caffeine-withdrawn haze and tries to pull himself together just enough so he doesn’t look completely homeless by the time he gets to school. He drinks his coffee, gets caught up on his grading, the Macs in the lab _don’t_ break down, and Yuri Plisetsky raises his grade by six whole points by Friday afternoon.

Since the day he graduated college and began teaching, nothing has ever gone this well in Yuuri’s classroom. There’s always at least one technological mishap that slows down a lesson, or the copier gets jammed and eats his original rubric for a project right before he needs to hand the copies out to the students. Sometimes he dips his tie in paint. Other times he forgets to wear a tie in the first place and gets mistaken for a student by the principal.

This past week has been unsettling, to say the least. At this point, Yuuri’s just waiting for the other shoe to drop, for reality to come crashing in and ruin his life as scheduled.

It happens exactly two hours after the final bell rings on that Friday.

“God _fucking_ dammit,” Yuri Plisetsky snaps, easing his foot off the pedal to slow the potter’s wheel to a dead stop. He lets his clay-caked hands flop unceremoniously onto his thighs without a care for the state of his trousers as he scowls at the ruined pot in front of him. It’s the third one this afternoon.

Yuuri swallows down the urge to correct the boy’s language. He learned a long time ago that it’s a lost cause. Instead, he grimaces sympathetically and says, “Yeah, okay, not your best attempt. But at least you pulled the walls up a few inches! That’s an improvement.”

“Don’t coddle me, sensei.”

“Okay, the pot sucks.”

Yuri nods, straightening his shoulders. “Better. Thanks.”

He rolls his eyes and rakes a hand through his hair, ignoring the snarls and dried bits of clay that have collected in the dark strands since the school day ended. He heaves a heavy sigh. “I wish you wouldn’t make me say things like that. You know I don’t mean any of it.”

But Yuri only shrugs, snatching the bat up off the wheel before taking it over to the clay reclamation bucket. He digs his fingers into the flopped pot and scrapes it into the bucket, saying, “I’m aware. I just don’t like to be complimented when I’m doing shit wrong.”

Yuuri pinches the bridge of his nose. “I’m commenting on _slight_ improvements in your technique. I’d hardly call that complimenting _._ ”

“Well, that’s what it feels like and I hate it. So cut it out.”

“Can I at least praise the way you wedged your clay earlier?”

“Hell no.”

It’s like he hates all good things in this world. Yuuri just doesn’t get it. (Knowing Yuri’s skating coach and father, however, it makes a little more sense—not a lot, but a little. Yakov Feltsman is a scary, scary man who accepts nothing less than perfection.)

Yuuri chances a look at his watch, squinting through the scratched face to see that it’s nearing four-thirty in the afternoon. He lets out a low curse that Yuri pretends not to hear from the other side of the classroom.

“Got somewhere to be?” Yuri asks flatly, eyebrows furrowed as he rinses off his bat and places it on the stack with the others.

Yuuri pulls his lower lip between his teeth—and sputters, because he’s somehow gotten iron oxide in his mouth and he can feel clay particles between his teeth and _ugh, gross._ He shakes his head and reaches for the water bottle on his desk to rinse his mouth out. “No! I mean— well, yeah, but they’re not _plans_ or anything _._ They’re just… plans. Like, regular plans, not _plan_ -plans.”

Yuri is looking at him like he’s lost his mind a little bit, which isn’t too far off the mark. “And I thought Beka was bad at stringing sentences together,” he mutters. “Honestly, how do you even function during class?”

“No idea. I’ve been asking myself that same question since I got hired,” Yuuri tells him sagely. He shakes his head. “But, uh, yeah. I’ve got to be at the rink at five. So we’d better wrap this up pretty quick.”

At this, Yuri’s ears perk up. “The ice rink?”

“Yep,” Yuuri says, shrugging. He unties his apron and goes to hang it up on its designated hook by the door. “Yuuko—you know, the lady who owns the place? What am I saying, of course you know her. Well, anyway, she hired me to paint a mural on one of the walls in the main arena. I promised her I’d finish sketching it out tonight.”

Yuri blinks, green eyes wider than normal, but he’s careful not to look _too_ surprised. “Oh,” he says quietly. He frowns. “Huh. Well, that’s… cool. I guess. Maybe I’ll see you there later.”

“Do you have practice tonight?”

“Yeah,” he sighs, picking at some of the half-dried clay that’s clinging to the front of his trousers. “Dad’s got me scheduled for some on-ice practice time tonight. It sucks, but Nationals aren’t far away. Whatever.”

Yuuri, even though he knows his student hates it, smiles softly. “Most kids your age would be a little more excited about going to Nationals, you know. It’s kind of a big deal.”

He scowls and kicks at the dusty floor. “Yeah, well. Most kids aren’t me.”

His voice is tinged with bitterness, and Yuuri’s heart aches for him ever so slightly. It’s not the sharp, insistent tugging sensation he feels every time he sees that girl in second hour wearing the same clothes for the fourth day in a row (“She just moved in with some relatives so things are a better than they were,” Georgi had told him. “Still, she’s reeling. Give her some time.”), but it’s similar in the way that he _feels_ for this kid. After these last few weeks of tutoring, he’s grown rather attached to Yuri Plisetsky and his prickly attitude and penchant for creative cursing.

He reaches for his messenger bag and slings it over his shoulder before slipping the pencil out from behind his ear. He twirls it expertly around his fingers and chews on his words carefully. “To be honest, I don’t think any kid is like you, Yuri. And that’s not a bad thing.”

Yuri’s head snaps up, blond hair slipping in front of his eyes as he glares—but there’s no heat behind it this time. “What’s that supposed to mean?”

But Yuuri only clucks his tongue and stops twirling his pencil, pointing the eraser end at his student. “Ah, I _could_ explain it to you, but you don’t like compliments, remember?”

His sea-glass eyes narrow into slits but he ducks his head to hide the beginnings of an amused smile beneath his fringe. “Oh, fuck you, sensei,” he mutters. “That was dirty.”

“I think the word you’re looking for is _clever,_ ” Yuuri quips, smirking. He jerks his chin in the direction of Yuri’s backpack. “Now get going before your dad starts sending me nasty emails. I don’t want to be responsible for you losing at Nationals.”

He rolls his eyes, but the action is almost… fond _._ “I’m going, I’m going. Lemme grab my stuff before you lock me in here.”

“Don’t tempt me.”

And then the much-anticipated shoe _finally_ drops, and Yuuri really shouldn’t be as surprised as he is when it happens.

It begins with the rhythmic sound of footsteps in the hallway. Yuuri frowns in the direction of his classroom door and shares a confused look with Yuri, who has frozen in the midst of slinging his backpack over his shoulders, frowning at the unexpected noise; they’ve done this after-school thing enough times to know that at 4:30, the only people left in the building are the janitors and the practicing sports teams, and none of them wear shoes that sound like _that._

The footsteps get closer, and then the person’s right outside—

And of course it’s Viktor Nikiforov, because this week had been far too wonderful and the universe is a spiteful, evil thing.

He pokes his head in, eyes wide and smile brighter than the halogens above their heads. He’s dressed in that same beautiful overcoat from last time and expensive (albeit noisy) shoes adorn his feet. His hair is windswept and tousled like he came fresh from a photoshoot, cheeks pink from the cold outside and eyes bright beneath his fringe. The scarf around his neck makes it look like someone took a Pantone swatch of Viktor’s eyes and turned it into something warm and fuzzy and _too perfect, what is even happening with my life anymore?_

“Yuuri!” he greets sunnily, taking a step into the classroom. A pair of fancy sunglasses are in his hands, and he begins to fiddle with them as he takes a step forward. “How are—“

_“_ Oh my god _why.”_

Yuuri turns to stare at his student, who is spearing Viktor with the most incredulous look he’s ever seen. Yuri’s knuckles are white where he grips the straps of his backpack and his mouth is set in a thin line of displeasure and irritation.

Viktor gives him a funny look, glancing back and forth between him and Yuuri for a flickering moment. “I’m… here to pick you up from tutoring,” he tells him, laughing awkwardly. He rubs the back of his neck. “Didn’t Yakov—?”

“No,” he cuts him off, voice sharper than steel. “He didn’t.”

Viktor blinks. “Oh. Well, he said he would—“

“Wanna know why?”

Viktor glances uneasily at Yuuri for a moment. “I imagine you’re going to tell me whether I want to know or not.”

And he’s right, because Yuri snaps, “It’s because I’m eighteen years old and I drive myself to and from school every _fucking_ day.” He rolls his eyes and hoists his backpack up a little higher, muttering something under his breath in Russian that Yuuri doesn’t understand, but he assumes it’s not exactly flattering. “Jesus Christ, Viktor. I’m not a kid anymore.”

Yuuri swallows and begins twirling his pencil nervously. He goes faster and faster until the pencil is little more than a yellow blur between his digits, but it gives him something to focus on other than the electricity hissing and popping in the air between the two skaters. He wills himself to become invisible. It doesn’t work.

Viktor, strangely enough, does not look at all surprised by his godson’s revelation. In fact, he almost looks like he had expected this to happen. He smiles sweetly, eyes twinkling strangely. “Oh, really? How thoughtless of me. For some reason, I didn’t think you had your license.”

Yuri holds up his keys—a jumble of silver chains and fuzzy cat keychains (cats, really?)—and jingles them noisily in Viktor’s face. “Are you, like, actually high right now?” he demands. “Or are you just fucking with me? I honestly can’t tell. I mean, we literally drove to that ramen place together last week.”

“It’s an easy thing to forget, Yurio. Stop being so dramatic.”

Yuri visibly recoils, his face souring into something pinched and vaguely horrified. “Do _not_ call me that. You promised.”

Viktor taps his lower lip with his index finger, humming in thought. He smirks and shakes his head. “Mm, maybe, but circumstances have certainly changed. I think I’ll start using it again. It’ll prevent confusion and whatnot. Don’t you think so, _Yuuri_?”

_Please don’t drag me into this. I have to be at the rink in ten minutes and I forgot my best pencil sharpener at home so I don’t really have time for this but oh my_ god _Viktor is looking at me and I can’t—_

“Um,” Yuuri stammers eloquently, fumbling with the pencil in his hand. He swallows, eyeing Yuri before blurting, “Y-yes? I suppose so.”

Yuri (Yurio?) gives him the most betrayed look her can muster, eyes wide beneath the low set of his hood. He opens his mouth to say something— _I said the wrong thing, he’s going to hate me again—_ but lets out a huff as he decides against it.

He stuffs his hands in his pockets, shouldering his way past Viktor with a muttered, “Fuck my life. Later, sensei.”

“Language!” Viktor calls out, aiming his voice out the door to follow his godson. There is not verbal response, but Yuuri can picture the middle finger that is no doubt sticking straight up in the air over Yurio’s shoulder.

And then, for the third time in the span of a month, Yuuri is alone with Viktor Nikiforov. He is also panicking, which is a perfectly acceptable response, all things considered.

Viktor cards his finger through his hair and smiles wryly, his eyes softening ever so slightly. It’s like watching ice melt on a summer day. “I’m very sorry you had to see that. Yura’s rather short-tempered, as I’m sure you know.”

Yuuri can only nod numbly, his fingers tightening around the shaft of the pencil in his hands with splintering force. “Mm.”

Viktor lets out a sigh and spares a glance around the room. He approaches a stool at one of the drawing tables and pulls it out to take a seat, hands falling into his lap and long fingers still locked around his sunglasses.

“Actually… I was hoping I would catch you here,” Viktor says quietly. He almost sounds—nervous? No, that can’t be right. Viktor Nikiforov does not get _nervous._

Yuuri swallows down the broken glass and twisted words in his throat. “Oh. Can I, uh. Help you with something?”

Viktor chuckles lowly, and Yuuri silently wishes he could bottle the sound and keep it on his desk for days when his students are unhappy and the outside world is painted in shades of grey. Viktor looks up at Yuuri through his lashes and hesitates. He doesn’t know what Viktor is about to say, but Yuuri yearns to reach out and pluck the words out of Viktor’s mouth like shiny baubles in a curiosity shop, turning each syllable over until he’s looked at it from every angle.

_I’m losing my mind._

But in the end, Yuuri sees the exact moment Viktor decides to bite back his words. Instead, he clears his throat and frowns faintly at the ground. “Forgive me, I’m being rude. I should ask how you are before we discuss… ah, business.”

_Business._ He must want to talk about Yurio’s tutoring, and Yuuri fights to contain his disappointment. He had hoped for words in watercolor, but the plain black-and-white of charcoal will have to suffice. Yuuri exhales slowly. “Oh. I’m doing— fine. I’m fine.”

Viktor lifts a silver eyebrow. “Just ‘fine?’”

“Well, fine’s better than not fine. So, yeah.”

“Fine’s not _good,_ though.”

He swallows and hesitantly begins to twirl his pencil around his thumb once again, frowning as he thinks of how to answer. In the end, he shrugs. “It’s good enough for me.”

Viktor cocks his head to one side and looks at Yuuri like he’s a puzzle he can’t quite figure out. “You deserve more than ‘good enough,’ Yuuri. Is everything all right?”

“W-what? Of course!” Yuuri insists, dropping his pencil to the floor with a clatter. He swoops down to pick it up with hands that don’t feel like his own. “I’m just tired. It’s Friday, you know? The kids are always a little more—“ he bites his lip, trying to think of the right word “—well, _more._ The weekend tends to wire them a bit.”

Understanding dawns on Viktor’s face. “Ah, I see. Well then, that’s good. I was worried Yura had gone and upset you.”

_Why do you care,_ he wants to ask.

“Oh,” is what he actually says.

Viktor bites his lower lip—like _that_ isn’t the most distracting thing in the world—and laughs softly through his nose, shaking his head. “I’m sorry. I’m usually much better at this.”

Yuuri feels the pencil in his hand crack down the side. “Better at what? Talking?”

Viktor does that self-deprecating laugh again, the one that Yuuri doesn’t quite understand. “Yes, let’s go with that.”

Yuuri feels like he’s missing half the conversation—and he _is_ half the conversation, so it’s that much more pathetic. He swallows, glancing nervously at the clock on the wall; at this rate, he’s going to be late and Yuuko may or may not decide to kill him upon arrival.

Viktor notices the direction of Yuuri’s gaze. “Oh. Am I keeping you from something?”

And it’s weird, because as much as Yuuri wants to say _yes, god, my best friend is going to kill me if I don’t leave right this second,_ another part of him yearns to plop down on the dusty floor of his classroom and listen to Viktor’s voice for the next three years straight.

If Viktor is truly intent on stalking Yuuri, he might as well make the most of it before Viktor notices all of Yuuri’s shortcomings and decides to stop.

But Yuuri also values not having broken fingers, so he should probably go see Yuuko.

He grimaces, biting his lower lip. Glaring at the clock doesn’t keep it from ticking. “Actually… yeah. I have an appointment with a client in— oh, god, seven minutes. I really need to leave. I’m sorry.”

He expects Viktor to be disgruntled. He does not expect the blinding smile that takes over the skater’s beautiful face.

“A client? You’re making art for someone?”

“No, I’m consulting with a law firm on a murder trial.”

The smile disappears and Viktor stares at him, face blanker than any canvas.

“I’m kidding,” he tells Viktor, laughing awkwardly. Yuuri rubs the back of his neck. “S-sorry. I’m not half as funny as I think I am. Yes, I’m making art for someone. It’s nothing major, really. Just a mural.”

Viktor’s eyes light up. “A mural, really? Where is it going?”

Yuuri twitches. Hesitates. “Um. The… Ice Castle Hasetsu?” he says quietly, half-hoping Viktor won’t hear him. He hurriedly adds, “It’s not a big deal, honestly. I’m friends with the owner and she needed a favor, so—“

But Viktor only laughs, and the sound is bright enough to put spots in Yuuri’s vision for the briefest moment. “What a coincidence—I’m actually headed that way right now. May I drive you?”

That, Yuuri knows, is a Very Bad Idea for a thousand reasons. A million reasons, even. (Most of them involve Viktor’s hair and eyes for some inexplicable reason, and a few have to do with his impeccable jawline.) They’re not great reasons, he’ll freely admit. Still, they’re _reasons,_ and Yuuri knows he has to say no. It’s practically his civic duty.

So, swallowing his hormones, Yuuri smiles and shakes his head even though his chest is in quite a bit of inexorable pain and he wants to scream _yes, dear god, take me now, you animal._ He also makes a mental note to get laid because he’s starting to worry himself a little bit. Having Viktor around town is not good for his health, it seems.

“I’m sorry,” he says quietly. “I’m… not fully comfortable with that. And I have to swing by my place anyway, so it’d just be an inconvenience.”

He’s probably imagining the blatant disappointment on Viktor’s face. “Oh, I see. I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to make you feel uncomfortable.”

“It’s okay,” he says, even though it’s not. “I just don’t know you very well. Call it healthy paranoia.”

Viktor nods, clearing his throat. He’s frowning at the floor. “Right. Of course.”

Yuuri adjusts his messenger bag and tucks his pencil back behind his ear where it belongs. Hesitantly, he shuffles toward the door, taking his time with everything in the room to make it obvious that he’s about to lock up for the night: he fiddles with the projector screen, locks and unlocks his computer, flips the power switch for the potter’s wheel a few times, locks his computer again. Busywork.

Finally, Yuuri approaches the door, and Viktor follows him closely. They step outside, Yuuri locks his classroom behind them, and they turn down the empty, abandoned hallways toward the front entrance of the school. Their footsteps provide a staccato background that follows them down every twisting hallway.

The entire school smells like feet. It is not romantic in the slightest.

A heavy silence falls between them. Yuuri would hesitate to call it awkward, but it’s not exactly comfortable, either. They’re passing the nurse’s office when Yuuri clears his throat, shoving his hands in his pockets.

He says, “You mentioned something about business earlier.”

Viktor’s head snaps to the side, his eyes wide and slightly unfocused. “Hmm?”

His mind is a thousand miles away, and Yuuri’s tempted to ask where he’s gone, but he refrains. “You said you had business to talk about. Back in my classroom. Remember?”

Comprehension dawns on Viktor’s Photoshopped face, mouth dropping into a small ‘ _o’,_ but the smile that curves his mouth is faint and tinged with sadness. “It wasn’t important,” he says softly. “Don’t worry about it, Yuuri.”

But Yuuri’s owned enough Viktor Nikiforov posters to know the difference between his real and fake smiles. He _knows_ the smile Viktor just gave him is the one reserved for interviews and those rare second-place finishes. He’s hiding something.

But in the end, Yuuri lets the little white lie slip through his fingers. It’s not his place to pry.

 

* * *

 

Today has been a disaster of the highest caliber. No two ways about it.

On the inside, Viktor wants to die—no, scratch that. Viktor wants to die _painfully_. After that fiasco at Yurio’s school, Viktor is half-convinced that he’s secretly been cursed to put his foot in his mouth for the rest of his days until he inevitably gives up on finding love and settles somewhere in the mountains to become a celibate sheep herder. It’s really the only explanation. It’s also an unsettlingly just punishment, all things considered.

Viktor lets out a pitiful sigh as he stares out across the rink at the small, huddled form of Katsuki Yuuri—who, now that he thinks about it, is probably steadfastly ignoring Viktor’s presence. Viktor has insulted his profession, stalked him at a school-sponsored game of footie, and made him feel uncomfortable all within the span of three weeks. He couldn’t have made a bigger mess of things if he tried. It’s pretty fucking phenomenal, really.

He’s never had this much trouble asking someone to dinner before. _Never._ Viktor knows that he’s no slouch whenever it comes to flirting—just ask Chris, or Mila, or even little Yurio. He’s wooed supermodels at lavish banquets and glittering galas, slept with billionaires and never stuck around for breakfast, and even been featured on the cover of _GQ_ three times in the last five years. Compared to all that, asking out a homespun high school art teacher should be a piece of cake.

Except that it’s not. It’s really not. And Viktor has no idea what to do about it.

In Viktor’s eyes, Yuuri is an enigma made corporeal. He’s a puzzle with a thousand locks and levers, hidden panels, and even a few switches thrown in for the hell of it. Every time Viktor thinks he has Yuuri figured out, there’s another surprise somewhere, another clasp he can’t quite get open without the aid of a very specific tool that he doesn’t have in his arsenal.

Yuuri’s gorgeous. He’s smart. He’s dedicated to his work and is probably a very talented artist, though Viktor’s Google searches have come up suspiciously empty-handed on that front. He cares about Yurio enough to spend hours after school helping him bring his grade back up in time for graduation. He’s funny and clever and adorable and Viktor is _losing his damn mind._

And having him at the ice rink certainly isn’t helping matters, either. It’s just another nail in the giant coffin of _awful_ Viktor’s locked himself in.

Right now, Yuuri’s sitting cross-legged at the foot of a large white wall at the top of the spectator stands, pencil held between his teeth as he squints at a design he’s been sketching on the wall for the last thirty minutes. He’s wearing a pair of ratty jeans covered with splatters of dried paint and a thin white t-shirt that shows off his sinuous upper arms in the most distracting, cruel way. It feels like hell, watching him, but it is quite possibly the best kind of hell Viktor’s ever had the privilege of experiencing in his entire life, so he withholds his complaints for the time being.

He’s supposed to be correcting Yurio’s form with Yakov. He’s supposed to pay attention to his coach and listen to his muttered criticisms as Yurio practices his routine for the millionth time. But he just… _can’t._ His mind is otherwise occupied with thoughts of Yuuri: his charming smile, his soft-looking hair, the smear of charcoal dust that always seems to be on the tip of his adorable nose for inexplicable reasons.

“I am doomed,” he murmurs, shaking his head slightly to clear the thoughts from his mind. “ _So_ doomed.”

Yakov turns slightly, eyeing him suspiciously. “Huh? Did you say something?”

Viktor’s eyes widen innocently and he clasps his hands together behind his back. “Nope. Didn’t say a thing.”

“I know I heard something.”

“Crazy world. Lot of sounds.” He shrugs in a _what-can-you-do?_ sort of way and grins sheepishly. He has to consciously keep his eyes from drifting back toward Yuuri. Yakov regards him carefully for a few brief seconds, and Viktor hopes and prays he doesn’t press the issue.

Finally, he nods curtly and turns back to Yurio’s performance with a dissatisfied grunt. “All right, then.”

As soon as Yakov’s attention is diverted, he lets out a silent exhale of relief. Yakov’s never approved of Viktor’s past partners before, and he probably wouldn’t be thrilled if he found out Viktor’s been pursuing Yurio’s favorite teacher since he arrived in Hasetsu. (Pursuing and _failing,_ he reminds himself miserably. Even more reason not to tell Yakov.)

The sudden scrape of blades startles Viktor out of his reveries. Yurio has stopped skating and is now standing directly on the other side of the boards from Viktor with his hands braced against his hips and a glare etched into his features. At eighteen years old and six feet tall, Yuri looks almost menacing. He’s less of a kitten and more of a tiger these days, Viktor realizes suddenly, and it almost makes him sad.

“I know what you’re doing,” Yurio declares flatly, eyes narrowed into slits. His glare is sharp enough to cut.

Viktor blinks at him owlishly. His eyes flicker to Yakov, who is scribbling something down on a notepad while he mutters to himself, clearly not paying attention to their conversation. “I… don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“Don’t play dumb with me. It’s never worked before, it won’t work now.”

Viktor holds up his hands in mock surrender and channels every ounce of energy into his award-winning smile. “Sorry, I don’t know what you mean. Could you be more specific?”

“Bullshit,” Yuri snaps. He jerks a thumb over his shoulder in Yuuri’s direction. “You’re trying to sleep with Katsuki-sensei. It’s fucking gross. Lay off.”

“Well, that’s simply not true at all.” Viktor feels his cheeks heat, but he manages to muster an indignant glare, crossing his arms. “I’d obviously take him out to dinner first. I’m not a complete barbarian.”

Yuri’s face screws up and he retches dramatically, sliding away from the boards a few inches. His eyes are wide with horror. “Could you be any more of a sleazebag? Jesus, Viktor. He’s my _teacher._ ”

At this, Yakov looks up with a frown, suddenly realizing that there’s a conversation going on and he’s not a part of it. He narrows his eyes in Viktor’s direction. “You’re _what?_ ”

Horror grips him and Viktor opens his mouth to refute Yurio’s claims, but Yurio beats him to the punch. He jabs a finger in Viktor’s face. “Viktor’s trying to sleep with Katsuki-sensei and it’s getting really fucking creepy. Tell him to stop.”

“He’s lying. Don’t believe him”

“I’m not lying! He’s been, like, coming to school to see him and everything. It’s pathetic.”

Viktor bats Yuri’s hand away with a scowl. “Yes, and while we’re spilling each other’s deepest, darkest secrets, how about I start listing some nuclear codes? Or maybe I can tell Yakov about that boyfriend of yours from school—Otabek is his name, right?”

Yuri’s face twists into a sneer, but his cheeks are tinged with the telltale pink hue of embarrassment. “Get fucked _,_ Nikiforov.”

“Well, you seem pretty dead-set against my efforts with your teacher, so—“

Next to them, Yakov heaves a long sigh that’s tinged with weariness, cutting Viktor off mid-sentence. He rubs a hand over his craggy face and mutters something under his breath in Russian that sounds suspiciously like _I’m getting too old for this shit._ His eyes sharpen a moment later, however, and he levels a death stare at Yurio.

“You, go stretch,” he orders the young skater, and his voice leaves little room for argument. He then points out at the ice, turning to Viktor. “You, get out there and work for once in your life. Nationals aren’t far away, and you’re slipping.”

Viktor opens his mouth to argue once again, but Yakov spears him with a narrow-eyed look that all but freezes the blood in his veins. Viktor nods mutely in acquiesce and goes off to get his skates feeling somewhat cowed, but still partially distracted by the overwhelming presence of the cute Japanese art teacher in the eaves of the stands.

Will Yuuri watch him skate? Will he be impressed?

…He probably won’t watch. The rational side of Viktor knows this.

(He starts with his quad flip anyway.)

 

 

* * *

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry this was so late! I had the majority of it written for quite a while, but my other YOI took over my life for a while there and I couldn't figure out how I wanted to end this chapter; a POV change was all it took, in the end. Hooray.
> 
> Anyway, thoughts? Drop a comment and we can talk a little. Love you all. :)


	4. Cone 02

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Welp. This got way out of hand. 
> 
> Oh well. Enjoy, I guess? And don't squint.

 

Pull lines, push curves. Watch your highlights and your shadows. Draw what you see.

The comforting scrape of pencil lead against rough sketch paper overshadows the sounds of blades cutting into the ice of the rink, of soft catch-breaths and sharp gasps as Viktor executes a brilliant triple axel for the fifth time this afternoon. Yuuri’s been drawing long enough that the spiral binding of his sketchbook has left a line of narrow indents in the flesh of his thigh, and there’s charcoal dust coating his fingertips. (And probably his face, now that he’s thinking about it. Somehow he _always_ has charcoal on his face. It’s a curse.)

He should be working on the mural, he knows. The blank wall is exactly that— _blank_ , and in sore need of some guiding sketches and splashes of paint—but Yuuri cannot, for the life of him, tear his gaze away from Viktor as he practices. The man’s a walking composition. It would be a crime not to capture him on paper while Yuuri has the chance.

Viktor is a blur of sterling silver stardust as he twirls across the ice, six feet of solid beauty in gold-plated skates and a cable-knit sweater that probably cost more than Yuuri’s monthly rent. He floats, defying gravity and all the laws of nature, and Yuuri can’t _breathe_ as he stares in pure, unadulterated rapture _._ Viktor puts Michelangelo’s _David_ to shame with every lunge and twizzle, makes Rodin’s _Thinker_ look like something a kindergartener made out of fucking play-dough. Screw the _Mona Lisa—_ Viktor deserves to be preserved behind sixteen inches of bulletproof glass in a climate-controlled display case. Because this is _art._

Yuuri considers texting Phichit to let him know that their favorite skater is twice as beautiful in person as he is on screen, but the idea is quickly shot down in favor of keeping Viktor all to himself for just a little while longer. It’s a closed practice anyway—the only reason Yuuri’s allowed in here is because of the stupid mural he’s currently not doing, and he’s half-convinced no one else besides Yuuko even knows he’s up here in the first place. He’s sequestered in a shadowed corner of the grandstands away from prying eyes. (Not that Viktor’s eyes would ever pry, that is, because why on earth would they? Yuuri’s nothing special.)

He lets out a faint sigh and hunches over the sketchbook that’s perched on his lap, grinding the tip of his vine charcoal stub into the page to replicate the sharp shadows that play across Viktor’s collarbones under the overhead lights. Yuuri hasn’t attempted his face yet; he’s not close enough to the ice to pick out the fine details, and the first few attempts just didn’t look right, so he’d decided to leave the rest of his Viktor sketches faceless in favor of capturing the fluid movement of his arms as he dances his way from one end of the rink to the other.

Frowning, Yuuri flips back a page to see the numerous other sketches of Viktor, all of them staring up at Yuuri with no eyes, noses, or mouths. The phantom sketches of Viktor are like something out of a horror movie, he decides suddenly. Yuuri grimaces at the thought and returns to his drawing with renewed determination, trying hard not to think about how creepy he’s being right now.

He’ll have to look up some photos of Viktor when he gets home just so he can memorize the specific angle of his jawline and satisfy his insane artistic cravings. Surely that’ll help smother his bout of unsolicited inspiration.

(It doesn’t.)

 

* * *

 

The next few days pass uneventfully—or as uneventfully as they can with Viktor Nikiforov in close proximity. Yuuri tries his hardest to focus on school: he fills out his lesson plans, fights with the iMacs in the graphics lab, hands out a few detentions here and there, and pretends to listen to the principal during faculty meetings even though none of the information applies to the fine arts department. (All of the information could have been sent in an email. For fuck’s sake, Stan.)

Yurio hasn’t been able to attend their after-school tutoring sessions because of impending Nationals. He’s surprised at how much he misses Yurio’s spitfire temperament and snide comments, but his grade has crept up steadily to a D over the past few weeks, so a few days off shouldn’t hurt his progress too much. As a result, Yuuri often finds himself at the rink directly after the final bell rings, pretending to work on the mural while he secretly draws page after page of Viktor’s body. Because Yuuri’s creepy like that and just a little bit insane.

He starts wondering about absurd things, like what shape Viktor’s mouth would take after hearing a bawdy joke. He fights with his pastels to capture the precise shade of red of his cheeks after a long practice, and he absentmindedly ponders just how far down the flush goes beneath the collar of his too-expensive shirts. Does he have freckles on his shoulders to match the smattering of cinnamon-colored constellations on his nose? Does he wear boxers or briefs beneath those tight-as-sin track pants of his? (Boxer-briefs, Yuuri decides one day out of the blue. He seems more like a boxer-briefs sort of guy.)

By the end of the week, Yuuri has filled his sketchbook with faceless drawings of Viktor. Scowling, he stuffs the sketchbook in the bottom of his duffel bag and hurls his charcoal stick into the ocean on his way home from the Ice Castle like he’s a spurned lover trying to rid himself of an engagement ring—but his dramatics don’t help at all, really. Mainly because he has more charcoal at home, and he’d be an idiot to get rid of all of it just for the sake of temporary catharsis. At the same time, however, he does feel a little bit better about everything. _Why yes, I_ am _taking control of my life, thank you for asking. I plan on blossoming into a well-adjusted adult with a perfectly manageable celebrity crush that does not negatively impact my mental health in any way, shape, or form._

Yeah, right.

“I am a pathetic human being,” he mutters one day, staring at the blank wall in front of him with disdain. He clutches a pencil in his hand and tries to wring inspiration out of his brain like a wet rag—he needs an idea, a concept, _anything_ —but nothing comes.

He spends another evening perched up in the grandstands with charcoal and a kneaded eraser, eyes following Viktor’s lissome figure as he glides across the ice. Yuuri figures if he’s going to be creepy, he might as well make the most of it.

It’s not like Viktor’s going to stay here forever.

 

* * *

 

The clock is pushing 7:30 when Yuuri realizes he is no longer alone.

His charcoal-stained fingers pause scant millimeters above his sketchbook, shoulders going rigid beneath the thin material of his t-shirt. He feels the other person’s presence like a gust of warm wind, changing the pressure around him and making his skin tingle. He listens closely, but hears no footsteps. Maybe he’s just crazy.

A sudden shadow falls across his sketchbook.

“Ooh, is that _me_?”

Yuuri squawks, flailing his arms out as the weight in his chest plummets in surprise. He drops his charcoal nib and the sketchbook tilts off his lap. It lands on the concrete floor with an ear-splitting _slap_ that’s likely to ruin all of the precise shading he’s been working on for the last hour and a half.

“Dammit,” he mutters, reaching down to hook a finger through the spiral binding. He turns it over to check—

The shading is a smudged mess.

_Fuck._

Viktor shuffles his feet, standing just out of arm’s reach like he doesn’t know what to do with himself. His cheeks are stained pink with mortification. “I’m sorry!” he blurts, hands clenching into fists. He bites his lip. “I thought you heard me coming. Did I…” he trails, gesturing at the sketchbook.

Yuuri lets out a low sigh and rubs the back of his neck, likely smearing charcoal dust across his skin. He discreetly flips the page to a blank one, hiding the drawings from Viktor’s sight. “Ah, no. It’s— it’s fine. Really. They were just stupid doodles anyway.”

“Doodles of me?” he asks, and his voice is so hopeful that it gives Yuuri pause. Maybe if he told Viktor how much he enjoys drawing him, Viktor’d be willing to pose for a—

No. _No._ He shuts that thought down with a shake of his head. Viktor must never know how pathetic he is, artistic cravings be damned. He must preserve his dignity.

But then Yuuri chances a look upward through his lashes, and he just _knows_ he won’t be able to lie. Viktor’s fingers fidget around his water bottle as he watches Yuuri like he’s a firecracker ready to blow up in his face, his eyes wide around those silver-framed cyan irises. His face is flushed with the vestiges of exertion from his practice and the collar of his shirt hangs loose around his neck, revealing a flash of collarbone that makes Yuuri question his sanity. He looks exhausted. He looks stupidly beautiful.

Yuuri lets out a breath and drops to the floor, scooping up the remains of his shattered charcoal stick. Fuck dignity. It’s not like he ever had very much of it to begin with.

“Yes,” he replies, his voice half-mumbled. He winces, feeling color flood his own cheeks, and cards his fingers through his hair. “Look, I’m really sorry if that’s weird or if it makes you uncomfortable. I was going to stop, honestly, but I just got inspired and I couldn’t stop myself and—“

“Can I see them?”

The words die on Yuuri’s tongue and he stares, open-mouthed, at Viktor. His gaze is as soft as his smile, and his fingers are no longer twitching. Even when he’s sweaty and gross, he still looks twice as put together as Yuuri feels on his good days. It’s unfair.

Yuuri gulps, suddenly feeling vaguely nauseated. “You’re not— I mean, you’re not angry?”

Viktor’s brow creases. “Why would I be angry?”

Yuuri opens his mouth but falters, feeling suddenly off-balance. He gives Viktor an odd look. “Because… well, besides the obvious, you mean?”

“I don’t see what’s obvious about it. I’m flattered you thought to draw me.”

Yuuri’s fingers spasm around the edges of his sketchbook. He drops his gaze to the twisted spiral binding and contemplates how awful it would be if Viktor actually saw his drawings. What if he likes them? What if he hates them?

Viktor takes a step closer, a small smile playing at the corners of his mouth. His gaze is almost playful as he reaches out, curling his fingers around the top edge of the sketchbook in Yuuri’s hands and pulling it toward him. Yuuri’s hands travel with it, unable to let go.

And then Viktor’s fingers touch his own, and Yuuri’s mental processes immediately come to a screeching halt.

He’s dead. He’s dead and he’s happy about it. He’s dead and he’s happy about it and Viktor is touching his hands, prying his fingers off the sketchbook with an aching tenderness that sends shockwaves down to Yuuri’s toes. He isn’t sure why, but he expected Viktor’s hands to be cold. Cold like the ice he skates on, like his snow-silver hair and his glacial eyes that remind Yuuri of the translucent undersides of icebergs.

Is this what true ecstasy feels like? Is this how Andy Warhol felt after _Marilyn_?

Viktor is so close now. Inches separate them, and Yuuri stares up at him, marveling at the finespun strands of green laced throughout his eyes that Yuuri never noticed before, the faint creases beneath his eyes from smiling. Yuuri wants to trace each of them with an ebony pencil, commit it all to memory.

“May I?” Viktor’s voice is soft and sweet. His index finger rubs soothing circles over the mountains and valleys of Yuuri’s knuckles, which have since gone white beneath his skin. “Please, Yuuri. I would be honored to see your drawings of me.”

Yuuri releases his hold on his sketchbook, feeling for all intents and purposes like he’s just given out a fraction of his soul. Viktor’s responding smile rips the breath from Yuuri’s lungs, leaving him lightheaded and Viktor clutches the sketchbook to his chest like it’s something precious before dropping down against the wall to sit on the floor.

How can someone be so bright without blinding everyone else? Yuuri doesn’t understand it.

“Whatever you see in there,” Yuuri blurts, sinking down on the nearest bench with weak knees, “just… don’t laugh, okay? Please. I don’t know if I could handle it if you laughed.”

That’s a lie. He knows exactly how he would handle it. First step, move to Siberia. Second step, change his name. Third step, die in obscurity. It’s a haphazard plan at best, but it’ll work in a pinch.

Viktor tilts his head to one side and gives Yuuri a confused smile. “Yuuri, I would never laugh at you. I’m sure you’re a very talented artist.”

He winces. “Depends on who you ask.”

“And if I’m asking you?”

“Then I’d tell you I don’t think I’m very good.”

Average. That’s what his professors told him for years. Every time Yuuri entered an art show, he’d win an honorable mention or nothing at all. Twenty bucks in an envelope with his name and a copy-and-paste _congratulations_ with a tiny little ribbon that probably cost ten cents on Amazon. He got second place at a show in Kyoto once, but that was a long time ago, back during his college days. During a time when Yuuri thought he could make it as an artist and not just an art teacher. That he could have his _dream._

He’s never won Best of Show. Never even gotten close.

_Average._

Viktor’s low hum breaks him from his reveries. He taps the cover of the sketchbook in his lap. “Hmm. Well, I suppose I’ll let your work speak for itself. Care to join me down here?”

“What, on the floor?”

“Where else?”

Yuuri shrugs and complies, sliding down the mural-less wall (Yuuko is going to kill him one of these days) to sit next to Viktor. Yuuri is careful to keep a few inches of space between them, worried that even the slightest touch will send sparks flying across his skin—or maybe Yuuri’s worried that his hand will pass right through Viktor if he reaches out, that all of this is just some fantastic dream his mind’s concocted. A phantom. A beautiful specter with a silver sheen.

Viktor glances sidelong at Yuuri, a small smile playing at his mouth. “Ready?”

Yuuri groans and covers his face with his hands. He peers through his fingers. “Just do it before I change my mind.”

Viktor doesn’t hesitate. He flips open the first page, his eyes bright and teeth flashing in a heart-stopping grin that makes Yuuri’s pulse flutter nervously.

And then, just as quickly as it appeared, Viktor’s smile disappears.

Yuuri’s frozen. He glances down at the page. And yeah, okay, it’s not his best, but the proportions are correct and it _sort_ of looks like Viktor if you squint your eyes just a bit and ignore the fact that the skater has a scribbled out face. The lines are long and the shadows dark, contrasting with the ivory paleness of his skin in cinereous shades of grey.

Viktor is staring at the drawing, his face covered by his long fringe. The world’s most inconvenient curtain. Yuuri wishes he could push it behind his ear, but Yuuri’s incapable of moving at this point. He has to sit and suffer.

“I’m so sorry,” Yuuri whispers, feeling his heart clench painfully in his chest. “ _God,_ I am so sorry. It’s bad, you don’t like it, I didn’t give you a face. You don’t have to look at the rest of the drawings. In fact, why don’t you just hand that back to me and we’ll pretend this never—”

But Viktor is suddenly flipping through pages faster than Yuuri can process what’s on them, and panic sets in. He tries to reach forward and pluck the sketchbook out of Viktor’s hands, but the Russian’s lilting voice stops him cold.

“Why did you draw me like this?”

Yuuri chokes on his words. He stares as Viktor traces a narrow fingertip down the edge of a random page, smearing some of the extraneous charcoal dust around. Yuuri shakes his head. “I’m… sorry?”

“This.” Viktor points emphatically to the center of his drawn chest. “Why did you draw me like _this?_ I don’t… I don’t look like me.”

Yuuri blinks. “Well, you’re missing a face, so—“

“That’s not what I meant. I’m talking about this,” he says, tracing his nail down the long, delicate curve of his drawn calf muscle in the midst of a deep lunge. He points to the arch of his back and the sharpness of his jaw. “You made me look…” he trails, fighting to find the right word. He huffs in frustration.

“B-beautiful?” Yuuri supplies.

At this, Viktor looks up at Yuuri with something akin to morbid amusement in his iridescent eyes. “I suppose that’s one way of putting it, yes.”

His embarrassment evaporates in an instant. (Because really, he just called Viktor Nikiforov beautiful _._ That’s like saying Van Gogh’s paintings are _‘just slightly okay_.’ Blasphemy.)

Yuuri cocks his head to one side, a confused smile playing at his mouth. He huffs a nervous laugh. “Viktor, you’ve been on magazine covers before. Surely you know how aesthetically pleasing your face is. This really shouldn’t be news.”

“Ah, but you didn’t draw my face,” he points out, flipping through the pages idly. He snorts. “I also think that’s the most clinical compliment someone’s ever given me. ‘ _Aesthetically pleasing_.’” He hums, and it vibrates down the length of Yuuri’s bones, burrowing somewhere deep and private. “I’ll have to remember that one.”

Yuuri cringes, fidgeting in place. “Yeah, okay, that did sound pretty awful. Sorry. It’s just…” He exhales, slumping his shoulders. He gestures down toward the rink at the bottom of the steep grandstands. “When I watch you out on that ice, I’m looking more at the mathematical proportions of your body than anything else. You know, the angle of your joints, the slope of your shoulders. Stuff like that. I’m not thinking about how good your ass looks in Spandex because realism takes a bit more concentration than that. If you think I made you look beautiful in these stupid doodles, then that’s because you _are._ I draw exactly what I see. Nothing more, nothing less.”

The silence that fall between them is electrically charged. Viktor turns to look at Yuuri with a curious frown marring his features, a crease etched deeply between his eyebrows that Yuuri longs to smooth out with the pad of his thumb. God, he’s so _close…_

Viktor’s sudden smile is sharp enough to kill. “So you think my ass looks good in Spandex?”

It’s a lot like crashing to Earth from the cool, infinite depths of space: painful and very, very unexpected. Yuuri’s cheeks heat up until they blister bright red.

“That—“ Yuuri sputters. He waves his hands frantically. “No! Did you hear anything I just said? I specifically said I _wasn’t_ thinking that!”

“Well, _I_ specifically heard something about my ass looking good in Spandex.” Viktor plops his chin in his hands and looks up at Yuuri through his lashes, pouting ever so slightly. “Can we elaborate on that, please?”

Yuuri swats at him, biting back a smile. His ears burn. “Shut up. You’re missing the point.”

“Oh?” Viktor’s laugh is infectious. A contagion, sweet and oh-so lethal. “And what is your point, dare I ask?”

Yuuri smiles, his eyes tracing the precise contour of Viktor’s mouth as it’s curved in a heart-shaped smile. He commits every crease to memory, determined to know Viktor’s face so Yuuri can fold it up and stick it in his pocket and take it with him wherever he goes. A memoir printed in full color.

“I draw what I see, Viktor,” he murmurs. His voice is too loud, too tremulous. One wrong step and everything shatters. “I draw you exactly as you are.”

Silence. Not wishing to see the disturbed look that is no doubt in Viktor’s eyes, Yuuri tilts his head back against the concrete wall with a soft _thunk_ and stares up at the ceiling, wishing with all his might that the roof of the rink would crack open and shower them both with starlight, drown them in inky blackness. He smiles faintly up at the ceiling girders and stops to wonder—would the starlight reflect off Viktor, or would he just absorb it all like a sponge and shine even brighter than before?

Yuuri also wonders if it’s okay to wish upon a fallen star. Especially if said star looks like Viktor.

On his right, Yuuri hears the shuffle of pages being flipped back and forth. A soft hum of approval—musical notes sweeter than anything Yuuri’s ever heard before.

“How long did it take you to do these?” Viktor asks, tracing a finger around the contour of his jawline on paper. “The amount of detail you’ve put into these is amazing.”

Yuri chances a look down at the current page, noting that Viktor’s scrutinizing a close-up of Viktor’s arched back in the midst of a Biellmann spin. He shrugs. “Depends on the pose I’m drawing. Probably around five to ten minutes per figure, though.”

Viktor glances sidelong at him, one eyebrow raised. “Not that I have a frame of reference for these sorts of things, but that sounds fast.”

“Well, you move fast. I have to keep up.”

Viktor looks skeptical, but vaguely impressed at the same time. “And you just… what, _remember_ what I look like in the moment? Do you have a photographic memory that I don’t know about?”

Yuuri chuckles, shaking his head. “No, nothing like that. I just remember the general shape of the pose and let the rest of my memory fill in the blank spaces. I’ve been doing this sort of thing for a long time, Viktor. You start to see patterns after a while.”

“Patterns in me, or patterns in people in general?”

“Both, but I’ve watched you skate for years, so I probably know your body better than most people, I imagine. It helps.”

He realizes what he’s said just as soon as it’s past his lips. Gasping, he claps a hand over his mouth and squeezes his eyes shut. _Oh, god, no. Could I be any creepier?_

On his right, Viktor says nothing for the longest time. He’s offended, most likely. Or scared. Or maybe he got up and left thirty seconds ago—Yuuri wouldn’t know. He’s probably filing a restraining order right this second.

Cautiously, Yuuri cracks open one eye and braces himself for the worst.

He sees blue. Drowns in it. Viktor’s gaze is a magnet that draws Yuuri in and twists him into knots. Viktor watches him carefully, pursing his lips in what appears to be deep thought. What is he looking for? What is he thinking? Yuuri wants to ask, but he’s frozen to the spot, lips faintly parted and throat mysteriously dry.

Then, smiling softly, Viktor slowly reaches up and adjusts Yuuri’s glasses, sliding them further up the bridge of his nose where they belong. His fingers brush the soft ends of Yuuri’s hair near his temples as he pulls his hands back, sending involuntary shivers down Yuuri’s spine.

“You are an incredible person, Yuuri Katsuki,” Viktor murmurs, dropping his gaze to Yuuri’s nose, his cheeks, his mouth. Watching it like it’s something precious. Then it’s back to his eyes, and Yuuri has to remind himself to breathe lest he pass out on the spot. “Absolutely _incredible_.”

“I’m not so great,” he exhales, breath heavy. He feels an invisible tether pulling him forward, reeling him in like a fish. He’s worried he’ll fall into Viktor and never want to crawl his way out again. A sweet escape, a beautiful prison. “You’re just, uh. Fun. To draw, I mean. Nice… lines.”

His eyes twinkle with amusement. The curve of his mouth is sinful. “Lines, hmm?”

“Yeah.” Yuuri’s lungs feels too big for the trappings of his skin. “G-gorgeous lines. The best.”

Another low, world-shattering hum traverses over the surface of Yuuri’s skin, searing every nerve ending like wildfire. _Scorched earth_ , he thinks numbly. _No turning back_. Viktor looks solely at Yuuri’s lips, his eyes dark and hooded with desire and something else Yuuri can’t put his finger on. Yuuri opens his mouth to ask what it is, but before he can get a word out Viktor’s hand comes up, fingertips mapping the gentle curve of Yuuri’s cheek with feather-light touch. Viktor presses a thumb against his lower lip.

“Is that all?” he asks, his voice a low rumble that sends Yuuri’s head spinning on its axis. He arches an eyebrow coyly. “You like me for my lines?”

_I like you for everything._

And this is it, Yuuri suddenly realizes with a start. This is what it’s like to find your muse, your inspiration, your _everything_. To want something more than you’ve ever wanted anything, to _burn_ for a cause so stupid, so impossible that it feels ridiculous to even hope. This is how Salvador Dali felt when he met Gala. How Picasso felt when he saw Fernande Olivier bathed in the soft glow of Parisian lights and thought to himself, “ _Yes, this is who I will paint forever_.” Yuuri wants to take Viktor apart and put him back together piece by piece, to analyze every little edge like a jigsaw puzzle until Yuuri knows Viktor better than Viktor knows himself. Yuuri wants to paint Viktor and sculpt him and take him out to dinner on Tuesdays and walk dogs along the pier with him and _god,_ he’s so stupid for wanting Viktor the way that he does, but he’s caught in Viktor’s orbit, a celestial body unable to fight the direction of gravity. He is swept away. He is _lost_.

Yuri wants him. He wants and wants and _wants,_ dammit, but the words just won’t come. They’re stuck in his throat, caught between languages and fighting for dominance. He’s choking on his desires, suffocating in his silence. A good way to die, if ever there was one.

“You’re very… proportionate.” Yuuri fights to swallow, cringing at how loud it sounds to his own ears. “And I love—“ he gasps as Viktor’s fingers trace the tendons in his neck, brushing against the jut of his collarbone where it sticks out above the neckline of his t-shirt. “Skate. I love… skate. Watching you love—I mean _skate,_ ” he stammers, words incinerating before his very eyes, floating away on the wind before dissolving into ash. He shakes his head to clear his thoughts. “I love watching you skate. It’s inspiring. _You’re_ inspiring.”

The searing heat of lips against the soft skin of Yuuri’s neck, and he suddenly can’t tell up from down. It feels like letting go. Free-falling into nothingness. No safety nets here.

“ _Yuuri,”_ hums Viktor, his breath ghosting over Yuuri’s pulse point. Strong hands find his waist, thumbs drawing aimless circles into the grooves of his hipbones. A low, throaty chuckle. “You know all you have to do is ask. So ask, please.”

“Ask?” he wheezes, staring at a fixed point on the ceiling while his soul seeps out of his body, ascending to a higher plane. Somewhere utterly unknowable. “Ask what?”

“You know what,” he whispers. A soft kiss is pressed to juncture of his neck and shoulder, then the tantalizing scrape of teeth. “Please?”

_Please._

And then it hits him.

Yuuri feels ten times lighter than he did five minutes ago. He’s half-convinced that if he pushed against the hard floor beneath him, he’d fly away into infinity, taking Viktor with him into the great unknown. He _knows._ He _wants_ this. All Yuuri has to do is ask, and he can have it. He can have everything, nothing, the whole world cupped in his hands.

“Viktor,” he whispers, half-biting back a moan when Viktor responds with an enthusiastic nip to Yuuri’s earlobe. He struggles to put his hands somewhere, _anywhere,_ but he can’t find a handhold. Viktor’s too slippery for him to hold onto. “Viktor, will you…”

“Yes?” And he sounds so _hopeful_ that Yuuri feels his heart sing. He opens his mouth and clenches his fists, bunching the fabric of Viktor’s shirt between his trembling fingers. _Say it, just say it…_

He leaps without a parachute.

 _“Viktorwillyouposeforme?_ ” he blurts in a rush, feeling his skin tingle from the tips of his fingers to his toes. And Yuuri’s smiling and so, so happy that it takes him a whole five seconds to realize that Viktor’s gone completely still beneath his hands.

When he pulls away, Yuuri fights the urge to whimper in protest. He feels half-frozen without Viktor close by, but his stunned face makes Yuuri cold for entirely different reasons. He really wishes he had that parachute right about now.

“You want me to… pose for you?” Viktor asks, eyebrows furrowed in confusion. He shakes his head, raking his fingers through his mussed hair. “Yuuri, I don’t— what?”

Fear chokes Yuuri, holding his voice hostage. He stares, suddenly feeling entirely numb from his fingers to his toes. Across from him, Viktor cocks his head to the side and gives Yuuri a funny look.

“Pose,” Yuuri manages to croak, though his voice sounds suspiciously like he’s gargled with crushed glass and sadness. He clears his throat. “For drawings. Or paintings. I want you to be the subject of my art.”

Viktor blinks. “ _That’s_ what you wanted to ask me?”

“Well, yeah.” Yuuri toys with the frayed hem of his jeans, suddenly feeling very small and insignificant. “Wh-what else would I ask you? You’re my _muse_. I thought I made that pretty clear earlier. Embarrassingly so.”

Viktor runs a hand over his face and mutters something in Russian before reaching for Yuuri’s sketchbook and handing it back to him with a surprising amount of reverence. His eyes, once bright like blue fire, are now shadowed with weariness and resignation. Yuuri feels his heart clench—was it something he said? Maybe he was too forward with his request?

Except that doesn’t make sense. Viktor was the one who came onto him first, after all.

“Why are you upset?” Yuuri asks as Viktor rises from the ground, the skater’s perfect mouth drawn in a dissatisfied line. “Whatever I did, Viktor, I’m sorry. Trust me, I—“

“It’s not you.” Viktor’s voice is soft. Gentle, despite his clenched jaw and flexing fists. He smiles sadly. “I guess I just didn’t expect you to ask something like that. It’s not the most… ah, _typical_ request I get.”

Yuuri scrambles to his feet, clutching his sketchbook to his chest protectively. He bites his lower lip, not noticing one bit when Viktor’s eyes zero in on that small movement with laser-like precision. “Oh,” he says, trying not to sound too dejected even though he’s pretty sure he’s shattering into a million pieces where he stands. “Well, if you don’t want to pose for me, you don’t have to. I just thought…” Yuuri shakes his head. “I’m sorry. I don’t know what I was thinking, honestly.”

Viktor stands two feet away from him, but it might as well be a mile. The space between them yawns, begging to be filled with warm bodies and soft touches, but Yuuri fights the urge to fall in headfirst. He’s faced enough humiliation for one day, he thinks.

Yuuri rocks back and forth on his heels, feeling the awkwardness of the situation settle beneath his skin, making him itch. He grimaces. “Well,” he starts, dragging the word out in his mouth. He stretches it between his teeth like sour taffy. “I’d, uh, better go home before Yuuko locks me in here. I’ll see you around, yeah? No hard feelings about tonight.”

Yuuri feels the familiar prick of tears, hot and wholly unwelcome at the brim of his waterline. He turns around to hide his face from Viktor, who probably thinks he’s ridiculous enough already without adding shameless weeping to the mix. Silently, Yuuri scurries around, shoving all of his supplies into his duffel before starting toward the door. Viktor hasn’t moved from his spot.

Just as Yuuri’s about the pass the threshold, he hears a voice.

He turns. Viktor is looking at him expectantly, eyes suspiciously bright and determined. Yuuri frowns. “Sorry, what? I didn’t catch that.”

“I asked what posing for you entails, exactly.”

Yuuri’s brain stutters like a broken record. He blinks once. Twice. Shakes his head. “Wait. Are you… like, _actually_ considering my offer?”

Viktor nods tersely and Yuuri’s head spins wildly. He claps his hands to both sides of his face to keep it from twisting off his shoulders and floating away. “If— Viktor, if you’re messing with me, it’s not really funny. Please don’t.”

He winces. “I’m not messing with you.” Viktor shoves his hands in the pockets of his track pants and saunters toward Yuuri, biting his lower lip and keeping his gaze trained on the floor just inches in front of Yuuri’s toes. Once he’s close enough, Yuuri looks up into his face and sees something akin to nervousness reflected in the depths of his eyes. “I just… want to know what it involves. Before I say yes.”

_Yes?_

“Before you say—“ Yuuri chokes. He tries to regulate his heartbeat and fails abysmally. “Right,” he stammers, raking a hand through his unruly hair. He wracks his brain to come up with something resembling words. “Oh my god. Oh my _god._ Uh… Well. It involves a lot of sitting, probably. And skating, whenever I want to draw you. Basically I just want you to be yourself while I do a bunch of drawings and paintings of you. Maybe even a sculpture, but you probably don’t have enough time to sit for one of those. Wishful thinking.”

His gaze is piercing. “Would nudity be involved?”

“ _Nudity?_ ” Yuuri squeaks. He’s positive his cheeks are somewhere between Cadmium red and vermillion. He shakes his head frantically from side to side. “No! Nudity is totally off the table. Not— I mean, not unless you _wanted_ to, but it wouldn’t be a requirement, not at all. ‘Cause that would be… weird. And stuff.” He clears his throat. “So yeah. Optional nudity.”

Viktor hums and taps his chin in through, his lips screwing up adorably. “I wouldn’t be opposed to nudity.” His eyes narrow sharply and he leans close once again, fingers coming up to lift Yuuri’s chin gently. His eyes are full of dark promises and danger, and Yuuri fights the urge to swoon. ( _Swoon._ Like a fucking teenager.)

“Yuuri,” Viktor purrs, and Yuuri can’t tear his eyes away for a second. “Are _you_ okay with nudity?”

Fuck. There isn’t enough oxygen in the room.

Fighting down the mental image of what a nude drawing session with Viktor might look like, Yuuri swallows audibly. “I-I don’t really, um. Have a preference either way. I can be… professional.” But he’s not really sure how truthful that statement is, now that he thinks about it. He’s not exactly feeling very professional right now _._

Viktor’s lip quirk up into a dazzling smiling. His thumb absentmindedly traces the lower curve of Yuuri’s lip again and Viktor’s eyes follow the movement for a brief moment, pupils dilating into infinite stygian depths of _something_. Yuuri would very much like to know what that something is.

But Viktor releases him, and Yuuri staggers in his attempt to stay upright; Viktor, on the other hand, doesn’t look fazed by their proximity in the least. Instead, he claps his hands together and gives Yuuri that thousand-watt grin once again, his eyes sparkling deviously in the low lights of the rink.

“So,” he starts, looking positively tickled. “When do we start?”

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Player Viktor is so much fun to write, even if my canon soul is weeping inside. Lol oh well. None of this makes sense and I love it. Writing this is the escape I need from my other fic. BLESS. 
> 
> Comment and tell me what you think! I love all of you.


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